HYDERABAD: Celebrations to commemorate the first International Yoga Day ended on a sad note for a 59-year-old retired Ayurvedic medical officer here Sunday. Sources said, CH Veera Reddy took the initiative to demonstrate a Yoga cleansing technique, ‘Jalneti’ in which water is taken through nostrils and let out through the mouth. The incident occurred between 8:30 a.m. and 9 a.m. at the community hall of Sahara Estates near LB Nagar during their group yoga session organised on the occasion of World Yoga Day.
P Mohan Rao, general secretary of the Senior Citizens’ Forum, Sahara Estates said, “He (Reddy) wanted to demonstrate how to perform a Jalneti. But water got stuck inside and he collapsed 10 minutes after that. We called the 108 ambulance and rushed him to Kamineni Hospitals at LB Nagar. There, he was declared dead.”
President of the Forum, Bal Reddy said the hospital doctors cited cardiac arrest as reason for death. “It was an unfortunate incident,” Bal Reddy said adding that the session was organised for the first time in the Sahara Estates. “Reddy was an active member of the community and had solved many of its problems,” said Mohan Rao, adding that Veera Reddy was a doctor and nobody advised him not to perform Yoga even though he underwent bypass surgery five months ago.
Veera Reddy served as a senior medical officer at the Government Ayurvedic Dispensary. He is survived by wife, son and daughter. He had undergone a bypass surgery five months ago.