The Dudhnoi police of Assam’s Goalpara district on Wednesday night averted a possible mob attack on two doctors at Dudhnoi’s first referral unit hospital.
According to police, an irate mob charged the doctors of declaring a patient with serious injuries as ‘dead’ whom they thought was alive at the time of the declaration.
Though the doctors managed to stay away from the agitators, the hospital property like windows and glasses were damaged by the mob.
However, the timely arrival of a police team under the supervision of Sailen Kakati, Officer-in-charge of Dhupdhara Police Station brought the situation under control.
The doctors have been identified as Jayanta Sahu and Arup Boro.
The deceased, in favour of whom the locals gathered, has been identified as 19-year-old Vikash Rabha, a resident of Lela Pukhuripar under Dudhnoi Police Station.
According to police, on Wednesday, amid the festivity of Vishwakarma Puja, two road mishaps took place on NH-17 in between 6:45 pm to 7:00 pm.
In the first accident, one 21-year-old Ranjan Kumar Rabha of Ketekibari under Lakhipur PS died on the spot when his bike collided with a truck.
In this incident, a girl, accompanying the deceased, was also seriously injured.
In the second incident at Lela, one Vikash Rabha was critically injured when his bike collided with another bicycle being ridden by Royjuddin Ali and Insan Ali.
Rabha was brought to the hospital by the police.
However, Dr. Sahu declared him dead.
“The body was then kept again in police vehicle and after a few minutes it was being taken away from the hospital when the attendants of the deceased claimed that Vikash Rabha was not dead,” said police.
The vehicle was ultimately returned to the hospital where Dr. Sahu, for the second time, declared the patient ‘dead’.
“People started to gather at the hospital premises and began charging the doctor of declaring Vikash dead when he was alive,” informed police officer Sailen Kakati.
After the incident, Dr. Nilmadhav Das, joint director of the district health services, expressed his resentment over the development and termed it ‘unfortunate’.
“The patient was examined under the police requisition, even then this happened. This is really a bad sign. You can remember what happened in Teok tea garden a few days back when a doctor on duty was lynched,” he said.
It may be mentioned that the resident doctor of Teok Tea Estate in Jorhat district, Dr Deben Dutta, was lynched by tea garden workers and non-workers on August 31 evening.
The incident created widespread protests across the State.
Police have registered a case (No. 116/19) under Sections 294/323/353/427/506/34 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 3(2) of PDPP Act 1984 and investigating into it.
