Assobus

Rome, 23 October (AKI) - An Indian who nearly died after a savage burn attack in early February this year, Navtej Singh Sidhu, will on Saturday leave hospital in Rome and spend the next two months in a specialised physiotherapy centre. Local authorities in the seaside town of Nettuno, where the attack took place, will on Saturday hold a party to celebrate Sidhu’s discharge from hospital, a milestone on his long and painful road to recovery.

Parts of Sidhu’s legs and feet were burned to the bone during the attack and still has a part of his right shin-bone exposed, a top surgeon who has performed numerous skin-grafts on Sidhu told Adnkronos International (AKI).

“We are transferring him to a the specialised physiotherapy centre, where he will be able to continue learning to walk again,” said Gaetano Esposito, a plastic surgeon attached to the burns unit at Rome’s St Eugenio hospital

Together with other plastic surgeons, he has has carried out over 10 operations on Sidhu (photo), mainly to his feet and legs.

Esposito and his colleagues are sending Sidhu to a physiotherapy centre located in the town of Benevento in Italy’s Campania region because it also has a surgery unit. There further skin grafts can be performed to completely cover the parts of his right shin-bone which are still exposed.

Sidhu, an unemployed labourer, suffered burns to 40 percent of his body in the savage attack that occurred at a railway station in Nettuno, south of Rome on 1 February, in which he was insulted, assaulted and set on fire by three youths.

Three young men aged between 16 and 29 have been charged with attempted murder over the attack against Sidhu and are due to appear in court on 3 November.

A Sikh from a small village in Punjab’s Moga district, Sidhu sold all his possessions to come to Italy in 2002 in search of new opportunities.

He worked as a building and agricultural labourer before losing his job and became homeless after his work permit expired.

The president of the Italian Senate, Renato Schifani, and Rome’s mayor, Gianni Alemanno, both visited Sidhu in hospital earlier this year and pledged to give him a job and accommodation.

Both politicians have been invited to Saturday’s celebration in Nettuno, at which several local charities will give Singh money they have collected for him. The local Indian especially Sikh community, will also attend the event.

da ADN Kronos