Football
ATK FC's Prabir Das extends financial support for young East Bengal fan's treatment
Prabir Das comes out in support of 7 years old East Bengal Fan's treatment.
After a season-long break due to a serious knee injury, ATK FC's Prabir Das has now regained his fan favourite tag with his impressive performances in the Indian Super League (ISL). The wing-back's pace and nifty creativity have turned out to be one of the key reasons behind his team's success.
Now, Prabir has moved from assisting the likes of Roy Krishna and David Williams on the pitch to assisting an ailing 7-year-old off it.
Abhijit Guha, a child from Belur, West Bengal, has been suffering from severe pneumonia for the last one week. The disease had lead to multiple organ failure.
Abhijit, who is also an ardent fan of East Bengal FC and a regular in the Red and Gold stands, was initially admitted in a general hospital. But owing to the severity of his condition, he was referred to a multi-speciality hospital. The estimated cost for the treatment had consequently shot up to Rs 1 lakh 65 thousand.
Abhijit's family were unable to gather such a huge sum of money on such short notice and hence, decided to appeal to the public for help through a social media post.
At this juncture, the Kolkata football fraternity, aka the Kolkata maidan, stepped forward to help the young football fan. Fan groups of East Bengal FC and Mohun Bagan along with ATK FC joined hands to raise money for the child's treatment.
Around this time, the social media post caught the attention of Prabir and he decided to help out. Speaking exclusively to The Bridge the ATK star explained what said:
"Once, I was also a kid supporter like Abhijit and I also used to go for matches with my father and uncle and from there I became a player. It's a tough time for the kid as his family was struggling to arrange the cost of his treatment so I came out to support him as I believe its my duty to stand beside him as a human"
-Prabir Das on Abhiji's incident
Pradip Chakraborty, an ATK fan, helped in connecting and initiated the communication between Prabir and Abhijit's family.
The Indian defender visited the child on Sunday at the multi-speciality hospital and provided him financial assistance of Rs. 50,000 and also promised to stand beside him in future. He further gifted Abhijit an ATK jersey and requested other players and football fans in a video message to come out in support.
"I don't want any publicity with this rather I just want to appeal to other players to come out and help this child get better because he really needs our support and I believe together we all can bring him back to normal life," said Prabir.
The young fan, Abhijit, is currently out of life risk but will be under medical supervision at his home for at least one-week following which the doctors will take a further call.
Kolkata maidan has always collectively come out in help in spite of the difference they have in respect to the teams they support and Prabir Das's gesture just epitomises that.
