Vanshika Trivedi, the eight-year-old Indian girl who was hit in the head by a stray bullet here Saturday, succumbed to her injuries Tuesday. Vanshika battled for her life after she was admitted in critical condition to King Abdulaziz Medical City, National Guard Hospital with serious brain injuries. Her father Rupesh Trivedi said the medical team at the hospital tried their best to safe Vanshika's life. “Vanshika never regained consciousness after she was admitted with serious head injuries and died at 10.50 P.M. Tuesday,” he said. Vanshika was hit on the left side of the head by a stray bullet at 8.45 P.M. last Saturday when she and her father went to close the window in the sitting room of their first floor apartment because of some commotion in the street. The bullet fired by one of a group of ten young men involved in a street fight in Rawda District II was embedded in Vanshika's brain and doctors were unable to remove it due to the girl's unstable condition. Vanshika was a second standard student of the International Indian School, Riyadh (IISR), and her father said that after the news of her injury was published in the Saudi Gazette, a large number of students and other well-wishers from the Indian community visited the hospital. He said that the necessary paperwork is being done to take his daughter's body for burial in Ranchi, in the northern Indian state of Jharkhand. Rupesh, an assistant marketing manager who has worked with Al-Madina Cement Factory for the last three years, has an 11-year-old son. “Vanshika's untimely death has left us in a state of shock and we are trying to cope with the tragedy that has struck the family,” he said. According to media reports following the Interior Ministry's decision Saturday that it would license privately-owned gun shops, preparations are under way to open three gun shops in Saudi Arabia's southern region. According to recent Interior Ministry rules, prospective gun shop owners should be at least 25 years old with no criminal record and in possession of a bank guarantee of SR500,000. The people wishing to possess firearms should be no less than 21, medically fit and well-behaved. The issuing of gun licenses is on hold at present until gun shops are open.
