Dehradun | Security guards scrambled to move stretchers out of the way and alarmed patients sat up in their beds as a police vehicle, escorting a nursing officer accused of molesting a woman doctor, drove through a waiting area at AIIMS Rishikesh.
A video of the incident, which took place on May 21, went viral on social media on Thursday.
In the video, the police vehicle is seen driving through the waiting area with rows of beds on either side. Security guards rush in and push aside the beds to make way for the police vehicle while perplexed patients and their attendants look on.
The nursing officer, Satish Kumar, allegedly molested the junior resident doctor in an operation theatre of the trauma ward on May 19. The doctor lodged a complaint on May 21, following which Kumar was taken into custody, police said.
The accused was later let off after questioning, police officials said, adding that an investigation in the case is underway.
"The molestation of the lady doctor had sparked angry protests by the resident doctors... and it was necessary to bring him out safely and take him to the police station," Dehradun Senior Superintendent of Police Ajai Singh told PTI.
The police vehicle went to the fourth floor of the hospital using a ramp for emergency passage to ensure safe exit of the accused, he said adding it was done with the permission of the AIIMS administration.
The nursing officer had got himself admitted in the psychiatric ward of the hospital from where the police had to pick him up.
A junior resident doctor at AIIMS, Rishikesh, seeking anonymity, said the accused got himself admitted in the psychiatric ward to show that the offence was committed as he was suffering from a mental illness.
The SSP said the accused was brought down in the police vehicle from the fourth to the first floor, where the protesters had gathered, and then taken out through the waiting area.
"If this was not done, anything could have happened, even mob lynching," he said.
The accused has been booked under sections 354 (assaulting a woman with intention to disrobe her) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code, police said.
Kumar submitted a written apology to the hospital administration and was suspended following the incident. However, doctors are demanding his dismissal.
Responding to the incident, Rishikesh AIIMS Director Meenu Singh said in a post on X, "An incident took place where a lady doctor was misbehaved with by one of the doctors. The accused was admitted to the psychiatric ward... The doctors were restless to take action against him and they had done a 'gherao' of the ward. The police used the car to get the accused out... The ramp used for our battery-operated vehicles was used by the police... It was an emergency measure and no one was injured..."
