Cricket-crazy fans in India can do anything to see their team win. But in Tamil Nadu, it's not clear whether a man slit his tongue as an offering in a temple for India's win over Australia at the semi-finals or whether his tongue was severed inadvertently.
The family of 27-year-old Sudhakar claimed that he sacrificed his tongue at a temple in Ponneri in Tamil Nadu for Team India's win against Australia on Thursday during ICC World Cup 2015.
To support their claim, they said that Sudhakar told them about the sacrifice through gestures, The New Indian Express reported.
However, doctors at Government Vellore Medical College Hospital (GVMCH) have a totally different interpretation. They said that Sudhakar told them through gestures that he had climbed the papaya tree with a sickle in his mouth but he slipped and fell from the tree. In the process, his tongue was cut by the sickle he had clasped in his mouth.
Even the police said investigations revealed that he had cut his tongue accidentally and not for some offering.
Sudhakar, a mason, had gone to the Vediyappan Temple in Ponneri around 8.30 am on Thursday.
A woman, who saw Sudhakar profusely bleeding from his mouth, called his brother Raju to inform about it. Sudhakar was then taken to Government Hospital in Vaniyambadi from where he was shifted to GVMCH.
Boopalan, Sudhakar's relative went looking for the tongue near the temple in the hope that it can be stitched back. He returned with the severed tongue and gave it to the doctors.
"We asked one of our relatives to go to the temple and look for the severed tongue (in the hope of having it stitched back). The relative called back at about 12 noon and said that the tongue was found in the temple. When we asked the doctors later they said that the tongue cannot be stitched back," Boopalan said.
Raju said that Sudhakar is crazy about cricket ever since he started watching the matches around five to six year ago. He "...never misses a game played by the Indian cricket team," Raju said.
