AIIMS-Patna faculty members threaten agitation

Patna: The faculty members of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Patna (AIIMS-P) have threatened to launch an agitation if no action was taken against the police officials who had arrested the institute’s former director Dr G K Singh allegedly without a warrant on Monday.“We wore black badges today and also took out a march on the institute campus to protest Dr Singh’s arrest. Both outpatient and inpatient departments of the institute would be shut if the government failed to take any action against the police officials,” said Dr C M Singh, a faculty member of the institute.Dr Singh, who had superannuated from AIIMS-P on October 30 this year, was arrested from the institute’s guest house in connection with a case lodged against him with a SC/ST police station here. He was, however, released by a local court within a few hours of his arrest on a personal bond. Dr Singh had come to the city from Lucknow to attend a farewell function the institute had organised for him. Dr Ajay Chaudhary, a former senior resident doctor of AIIMS-P, had lodged an FIR against Dr Singh with SC/ST police station, alleging that he had harassed, abused and thrashed him in his chamber on October 15. Addressing a presser on Tuesday, the AIIMS-P faculty members said Dr Singh’s arrest was illegal as the court of Patna civil court ADJ Akhilanand Dubey had on October 10 passed an order, asking the police not to take any coercive action against him. “The order was valid till November 29,” they said. Contesting the claim of IG (weaker section) Anil Kishore Yadav that the police had not received any such order from the court, Dr C M Singh said the court had passed the order in presence of Kameshwar Prasad Singh, the investigating officer of the case. Lawyer Vinay Kumar Pandey, who represented Dr Singh in the court of ADJ Akhilanand Dubey on Tuesday, too corroborated the faculty member’s claim. Incidentally, the IG was earlier the deputy director of AIIMS-P.“When Dr Singh told the police officials at the time of his arrest that he had got immunity from the court, they said the order to arrest him came from senior quarters,” Dr C M Singh said. He added the police have so far not taken any action against Dr P P Gupta, head of the AIIMS-P pharmacology department and a co-accused in the case. Dr Sanjeev Kumar, another faculty member of AIIMS-P, said ADJ Dubey reprimanded the police on Tuesday for arresting Dr Singh who enjoyed the court’s “immunity”. Dubey had earlier refused to sign the arrest warrant against Dr Singh.The AIIMS-P faculty members have also submitted a memorandum to chief minister Nitish Kumar seeking his intervention in the case. A copy of the memorandum has also been marked to DGP P K Thakur and the National Human Rights Commission. “Dr Singh was not even allowed to talk to his wife and take medicines. This inhuman attitude of the police shocked all of us,” Dr Kumar said.