A Covid-19 patient from the Indian state of Bhopal was raped by the attendant of the hospital she was admitted to. The victim who was battling for her life succumbed to the virus and was pronounced dead at the hospital.
The victim, who will not be named, was admitted to the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Center (BMHRC) after she tested positive for coronavirus.
The hospital management managed to keep the alleged abuse a secret for more than a month. The family members of the victim were also not informed about the rape.
The April 6 incident came to light Wednesday, May 12, after some activists spoke about the abuse on their social media accounts.
The police registered a case in this regard and arrested the accused. He was identified as 44-year-old Santosh Ahirwar.
According to the police, the male attendant sexually molested a staff nurse before sexually assaulting the covid-19 patient.
The accused, who was working at the hospital on a contract basis, went to the fifth floor of the building and sexually molested a staff nurse who was on duty. The accused ran away to the second floor when the female staff retaliated and raised the alarm, police said.
The attendant sexually assaulted the Covid-19 patient who was admitted to the hospital on April 4. The man touched the 43-year-old victim inappropriately in the name of a routine check-up, police said.
The accused accompanied the patient into a toilet when she went to answer nature calls. He sexually abused the victim in the toilet and also at her medical bed in the covid ward, police said.
The helpless victim narrated her ordeal to the female nurse who visited her the next morning. The nurse alerted the hospital management about the alleged abuse. The management, however, decided to take no action against the accused attendant.
The nurse, who was also molested by the accused, resorted to police and filed a case against the attendant.
Nishatpura police station in-charge, Mahendra Singh Chouhan, and his team responded to the hospital to record the victim’s statement. The official told local media that a statement could not be recorded as the victim’s health condition was deteriorating.
The victim was shifted to a ventilator on April 6, where she died later that evening.
The molestation incident was mentioned in Police’s Daily Situation Report (DSR), however, the rape case seemed to be omitted.
"We have a letter written by the victim. As she didn’t want to disclose the incident to anyone, the information was not shared with anyone except the investigating team," Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), Bhopal Irshad Wali, told Free Press Journal.
The suspect is presently lodged at Bhopal Central Jail. The charges imposed on him were unclear at this time.
© 2024 Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
