The 36-year-old Parag Sawant, became the 189th victim of the serial train blasts that rocked Mumbai on July 11, 2006. The 36-year-old Parag Sawant, became the 189th victim of the serial train blasts that rocked Mumbai on July 11, 2006.

Unlike the neighbouring children in Ramabai Cooperative Housing Society, eight-year-old Parichiti never got to play with her father who she had been visiting almost every weekend 34 km away at the Hinduja hospital in Mahim, where he lay comatose.

The trips came to an abrupt end Tuesday morning when doctors declared her father, Parag Sawant, dead. The 36-year-old became the 189th victim of the serial train blasts that rocked Mumbai on July 11, 2006.

Sawant first suffered from breathlessness and low saturation levels at 6 am and then succumbed to a sudden cardio-respiratory attack at 6.54 am, four days before the ninth anniversary of the blasts on seven local trains that claimed 187 lives almost immediately and left 824 injured. One of the injured persons, Ashfaq Khan (54), an electrical engineer with the railways, died later, taking the toll to 188.

Despite being in coma for nine years, Sawant’s family had been hoping that he would recover. He had shown signs of recovery once in 2009. “For a year, he could communicate with us, speak in small sentences. He even spoke to his daughter during her visits. Then the fits came, and he once again entered a semi-coma state,” said Kishor Bhosle, Sawant’s father-in-law.

Sawant was an assistant manager with a private builder in Andheri. On July 1, 2006, he had purchased a First Class pass following a promotion. “Ten days later, the blasts took place,” said Kishor, adding that at the time of the blasts, Sawant was returning home towards Bhayander in a Virar-bound train. His daughter was born three months later.

Soon after the blasts, he had been rushed to Bhakti Vedanta Hospital, Mira Road, in an unconscious state. Sawant was in deep coma when he was brought to Hinduja on July 12, and it had been his home ever since.

“For two years, he had remained in deep coma. Though he then came into a semi-comatose state, the condition had remained same ever since,” said a source in the hospital.

A relative said the hospital bills were being managed by the railways for the last nine years.

Sawant’s final rites will be carried out in Bhayander at 1 pm Wednesday.

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