Mumbai, Jan. 24: A 60-year-old NRI who arrived from Malaysia died of a heart attack today amid allegations that the airport did not have the medical support to save him.

Girdharilal Jagjivan was waiting at the baggage counter at Mumbai airport when he collapsed, after which his wife and co-passengers called the airport doctor.

The passengers later said the airport was ill-equipped to handle emergency cases and blamed the authorities for the death. It was not known if Jagjivan had a history of heart ailments.

“Dr A. Upadhyay was clearly drunk. He even tried to give mouth-to-mouth respiration but couldn’t. His assistant didn’t even know how to operate an oxygen mask. Anyway, by then, it was too late,” said a passenger, who travelled on the same Malaysian Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur.

Jagjivan and his wife had come to Mumbai for a vacation.

Sahar international airport officials refused to comment on Jagjivan’s death but issued a statement saying the charge of negligence was “baseless”.

The post-mortem report said Jagjivan suffered a heart attack.

Usually, a doctor is on duty at all terminals to handle emergencies. Airport officials claimed Upadhyay was at another terminal when Jagjivan collapsed.

“The doctor was at Terminal 2A. It took some time for him to reach Terminal 2C (where the NRI collapsed),” the airport spokesperson said.

The passengers, however, alleged that it took about 20 minutes for the doctor to come to the patient’s aid, and an ambulance was made available only after half an hour.

On the allegation that the doctor was drunk, a police officer said it was not his job to verify the fact.