ALANPUR (RAJASTHAN): Four days after he was branded with hot iron, a one-year-old baby boy died at a hospital in Ahmedabad Sunday, doctors said.
Vipul, the boy, was branded by a village quack at Vaseda village in Vav tehsil of Banaskantha district Wednesday.
Branding is administered as a traditional cure for fever and some other medical conditions by quacks in villages, said Sunil Acharya, a doctor at a hospital in Deesa where the boy was treated briefly before being shifted to Ahmedabad.
Vipul was having fever for ten days, and he was branded on the left arm by the village quack Wednesday, he said.
"The boy had pneumonia. After being branded with hot iron, his condition became critical. We referred the case to Rajasthan Hospital in Ahmedabad Friday," the doctor said.
Gautam Jain, a doctor at Rajasthan Hospital, confirmed that the infected burn injury claimed Vipul's life.
"This superstitious practice (of branding) still prevails in remote parts of rural areas of the state," Dr Jain said.