Chennai: Pradeep Kumar, a 28-year-old Chennai journalist succumbs to Covid-19 on Sunday, over two weeks after he exposed the unhygienic conditions at the Gurunanak school Covid care centre in Velachery, Chennai, where he was undergoing treatment for the virus along with his mother.
On May 12, he tweeted about the conditions of the centre with pictures of clogged drains and uncleaned toilets. He wrote, “Using the urinal/toilet means having to wade through clogged up faecal water, with floating sputum on it. Your feet smell of urine when you exit.” He further added, “Excessively salty and high sugar in the milk, turmeric milk and the tea that is given. This is a big problem for diabetics like me”.
Have attached some of the pictures here to depict the hygiene maintained at this centre. pic.twitter.com/ZAVqxfLjTv
— Pradeep Kumar (@pkayy92) May 12, 2021
Using the urinal/toilet means having to wade through clogged up faecal water, with floating sputum on it. Your feet smell of urine when you exit the place after your business. That's how I'm basing my judgement that it's some clogged up sewer pipe that is not being fixed
— Pradeep Kumar (@pkayy92) May 12, 2021
The Chennai corporation later got the centre cleaned up after Pradeep shared pictures. Congress’ Aassan Maulaana, who won the Velachery seat in the recent Tamil Nadu elections tweeted pictures of cleaned toilets and unclogged drains, and wrote, “Dear bro it’s taken care”.
Dear bro it's taken care pic.twitter.com/6IAQWbSomG
— JMH Aassan Maulaana #NammaVelachery (@Hassan_tnpyc) May 12, 2021
His last post on Twitter was a request for an ICU bed on May 17, read, “Hi @104_GoTN I’m trying to reach you urgently for an ICU bed request… Not able to connect… Pls, help @mkstalin @Subramanian_ma @GSBediIAS #CovidHelp.”
However, Pradeep Kumar passed away on Sunday, May 23, nearly a week after he returned home.
Kumar was a features writer at The Hindu. He started his career in 2014 in The New Indian Express. He had covered Chennai Corporation for The New Indian Express, Deccan Chronicle and the Times of India.
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