This could be the most shocking story of the year. We can only hope. The “We’re not in Kansas anymore” award goes to India, where a sting operation found doctors apparently agreeing to amputate the healthy limbs of beggars, so they would be more sympathetic.
“Believe me if there are two beggars in front of you and one of them is lame, you will give the money to the lame beggar,” the sting operation recorded one doctor as saying.
Secretly filmed footage apparently shows one of the doctors asking for about $215 to amputate a lower leg. He then suggests chopping off three fingers from a man’s left hand. Here is the story:
An Indian beggar begs on a pavement during monsoon rain in 2004. REUTERS/Sucheta Das
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Unfortunately, people who are mentally ill might fall for that - Life can’t be that horrible if there is still the will to survive
Imagine, life being so hopeless that that tactic would be seen as the only way to survive.
Imagine - how insensitive that doctor is to even suggest that - that only possible mitigating factor would be people with cancerous limbs that sooner of later would be amputated
- Posted by SEARCH Engine WebDo you blame the beggar for begging at the cost of his body parts, the doctor who is callously indifferent to his oath for a few rupees or the people who salve their consciences by throwing a few rupees to cripples at the traffic lights ?
- Posted by MeenaTraveling through Bombay, Bangalore, and Mysore in India in the 1980’s, I was struck by the number of children under 12 who were missing a hand or foot or part of an arm. At virtually every traffic light our vehicle would be swarmed by these unfortunates seeking rupees. I finally asked one of our hosts about the shear numbers of these children we had seen, thinking that industrial child labor might be the culprit. I was shocked to be told that the parents would arrange these amputations so that their children would be more effective beggars.
- Posted by J. BlakeThe memory still makes me wince.