US national admitted to Kerala hospital with injuries, Amrita Math claims he is 'mentally ill'

While the police say the man is still unconscious, the hospital has said that the 37-year-old is speaking.
US national admitted to Kerala hospital with injuries, Amrita Math claims he is 'mentally ill'
US national admitted to Kerala hospital with injuries, Amrita Math claims he is 'mentally ill'
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In the wee hours of Sunday morning, a US national was admitted in an unconscious state to the Thiruvanathapuram Medical College.

The man was brought to the hospital by a few members of the Amritanandamayi Math in Vallikkavu of Kollam district, and some policemen. The members of the Math had allegedly told the police that 37-year-old Mario Sapota was mentally ill and that he was becoming violent.

However, when the doctors examined him, they found that the man had been brutally assaulted. 

Conflicting versions

“The man from the US has not yet overcome his injuries. He is in the Intensive Care Unit and will be under observation for the next 24 hours. He is conscious and was able to speak. He was brought to the hospital from Amritanandamayi Math at 12.50 am on Sunday. Later, when it was found that he has injuries on his body, he was shifted to the ICU,” said a press release from the hospital.

“He had told the doctors that he was assaulted, but we are not sure where he was assaulted. He has got severe internal injuries," a source from the hospital told TNM. 

Karunagapally SHO, however, told TNM that there is nothing suspicious about the incident. 

“That person is mentally ill, he was becoming violent. He might have been assaulted by locals, we don’t know about that. It was the authorities of the Math and the police who took him to the hospital,” the police officer said.

Though the officer said that the man was still unconscious, the hospital authorities say that the Mario is able to speak properly.

Another Amritanandamayi Math member, a French national, was seen outside the ICU where Mario has been admitted. When asked, he told reporters that he had no idea about Mario or for how long he had been at the Math. 

Not the first instance

This is not the Math's first brush with controversy. In December 2014, Ouchi Eiji, a 56-year-old Japanese national, was found dead in his accommodation at the ashram. Eiji had been a resident of the Math since 2012. The case was suspected to be a suicide. 

Earlier, in 2012, there were allegations against the Math in connection to the death of a law student from Bihar, Satnam Singh Mann, who had disrupted Amritanandamayi's discourse at the ashram.

He had barged in to the podium of the Amritanandamayi ashram, and was subsequently handed over to police. He was then shifted to a mental asylum. Later, Satnam Singh Mann was found dead. He'd been brutally assaulted and died from the injuries.  

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