Parents of dead boy accuse police of assault at govt hospital
The Statesman | 20 July 2024
Police allegedly assaulted a couple while they rushed to the Barasat Government Medical College Hospital (BGMCH) to see their dead son, a Class XI student of a school in Salt Lake, at the hospital on Thursday night.
Police, however, denied the charge and claimed that the bereaved parents lost their temper after the sudden death of their son and attacked some police personnel, including Tapas Mondal, in-charge of the police outpost at BGMCH.
Trouble started when Ongikar Dasgupta, a resident of Dum Dum area, was brought dead to the state-run teaching hospital around 9.30 pm on Thursday. Ongikar, while going back home from school fell down from the bus in which he was travelling near Haldiram outlet along VIP Road, under Baguiati police station on 5.30 pm.
He was rushed to the BGMCH, later in the evening by three policemen of Baguiati PS, police sources said.
Ongikar’s father Anjan Dasgupta, a college teacher, and his mother Kasturi Dasgupta, a school mistress, along with their relatives somehow came to know about the accident and rushed to the hospital’s emergency ward to know about his condition.
According to hospital sources, the parents alleged that the police didn’t inform them about the incident and they came to know about it from their own sources.
Policemen, who rushed Ongikar to the hospital from the accident site, could not even give any clue about the condition of Ongikar to his parents and relatives who in sheer anxiety were desperately looking for him. Later, the doctors who attended to Ongikar informed the parents that he was brought dead to the hospital. And his body was sent to the police morgue at the hospital before his family members reached the hospital.
The Dasguptas and their relatives protested against the police and hospital authorities for shifting the body to the morgue without informing them anything.
Tension prevailed inside the hospital premises when angry relatives allegedly abused policemen and suddenly slapped Mr Mondal, police sources said.
Considering the situation getting out of control, the police outpost at the hospital informed the Barasat PS to send force immediately.
Police dragged out Ongikar’s agitating parents and took them to the Barasat police station to bring the situation under control at the hospital premises. Later in the night, with the intervention of Barasat PS, the parents were taken back to the morgue at the hospital so that they could see their son for the last time.
A senior police officer of the outpost said, “We can feel the mental shock of the parents and relatives after losing Ongikar forever. It was the natural outburst of the parents, who assaulted some of us.”
“His body will be handed over to his family after the post-mortem is done today. We have arranged a vehicle of the Barasat Municipality to carry the body to their Dum Dum residence,” a senior police officer said.