Riyadh: Injured Mangalorean Dies after 55 Days of Struggle

P A Hameed Padubidri
Daijiworld Media Network - Riyadh

Riyadh, Jun 17: Abdul Jabbar Kattapuni, aged about 56, a Manglorean, who sustained head injuries one and half month ago in road accident in Dammam, died on Friday June 15.

He had been in coma for 55 days in the Central Hospital in Dammam, the eastern province city of Saudi Arabia.  The deceased hails from Addoor in Bantwal Taluk.

Sources informed to Daijiworld that the accident took place on April 22 at King Fahad Road in Dammam. As usual, Jabbar was going to Mosque for night (Isha) prayer by walk on the footpath at Badiya District while a speeding car driven and drifted by a Saudi youth hit him causing multiple severe injuries mainly on his head and spinal cord. He was immediately taken to the hospital where he was in coma for about two months.  On Friday afternoon, he was declared dead in the hospital.
 
Anwar Sadath, IFF activist, informed that the dead body was kept in the hospital morgue, awaiting legal and administrative formalities. The authority letter from his wife and other kins to bury the cadaver in Dammam is being obtained, while other formalities are underway.
 
He had been working in the city’s Al-Hayat Restaurant for 17 years. He was survived by his wife, three children (one girl & two boys). He was very polite, sociable and familiar amongst the Mangaloreans in the region. Addoor Jamath members and other community people have expressed their deep commiseration over the sad demise of Jabbar.
 
IFF Jubail-Dammam-Khobar Units, A P Mohammad Addoor, Abdul Raheem Addoor and others worked hard to get all the formalities done.
 
Car drifting and joy driving has become fashion amongst the local youths, exposing the severe threats to themselves and the lives of others. Several people-both Saudis and expatriates-had already become victims to the crazy drifting. They drift their cars on the roads and in the places where the people gather, by clutching the hand-brakes that causes the panics in the minds of the people. It may be recalled that two weeks ago three Saudi youths were badly killed and one was fatally injured at Suwaidi District in Riyadh, when they drifted and lost control over their brand new (Camry) car, which overturned on the high edge of the road several times.