India's foreign minister "cheerful" after car crash
08 Apr 2007 09:39:14 GMT Source: Reuters
(Recasts, changes dateline to New Delhi, adds details) NEW DELHI, April 8 (Reuters) - Doctors treating Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Sunday he had broken his collarbone and needed 22 stitches for a head wound after a car accident, a leading TV channel reported. Mukherjee, 71, would be kept under observation for the next 48 hours at an army hospital in the capital, New Delhi, after being airlifted from the state of West Bengal. News channel NDTV 24 x 7, quoting doctors, said he was "cheerful", and there was no cause for concern. Earlier in West Bengal's capital, Kolkata, doctors and officials had said his injuries were not serious. "He is out of danger and fine, but since he sustained a head injury requiring multiple stitches, doctors said it would take several days to heal," Mrityunjoy Kumar Singh, a Ministry for External Affairs official, told Reuters. Mukherjee, the number two in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's cabinet, was injured when his car crashed head-on with a truck as he returned to Kolkata from a neighbouring district. With a bandage wrapped around his head early on Sunday, Mukherjee raised an arm to wave at hundreds of people who had gathered in front of a state hospital and spoke to doctors before being taken by ambulance to a nearby military airfield. He was put aboard a special Indian Air Force flight for the capital. The veteran politician, a senior member of India's ruling Congress party, was among four people injured in the crash.
