Delhi Riots: “You are an extremist, terrorist”, doctors to victims during treatment

In another bizarre incident, Delhi riot victims were subjected to communal remarks and even asked the full form of NRC and CAA by doctors during their treatment.

According to a report in Huffington Post, At least one doctor in Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital made communal remarks against a Delhi riot victim by referring to the person as “ugravadi” (militants/extremists) and “atankvadi” (terrorists) during treatment. Another doctor in the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital (LNJP) asked the victim the full form of NRC and CAA, while yet another doctor in the same hospital accused another patient of indulging in violence.

A report released by the public health advocacy group Jan Swasthya Abhiyaan (JSA) on Monday afternoon has shocking details narrated by the volunteers of the group working with the victims. “Patients and volunteers both reported that injured persons (are) being called “ugravadi” and “atankvadi” by doctors,” the report says. It says how the police also treated these victims with indifference verging on cruelty.

A doctor, Harji Bhatti, among the volunteers assisting the riot victims in northeast Delhi, said the incident occurred on February 26 while he was transporting a 30-year-old injured man from the Al Hind nursing home to Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital. The distance between the two places is 8 kilometres.

“We were in a hurry. It was already over 20 hours since the bullet had hit the victim,” Bhatti, a postgraduate from the AIIMS, New Delhi, said.

“But the police stopped us four times. Each time they made me open the dressing and looked at the wound. They ignored my pleas for urgent transport.”

In an interview to Huffpost, Inayat Kakkar of the JSA revealed the names of the government hospitals where these incidents reportedly occurred. In the third instance, according to the report, the doctor from LNJP hospital purportedly told the patient during treatment, “What will you do if we treat you? You will go back on the streets and be violent.”

“Far from providing healing from the trauma that victims have faced, we have found that the public health system itself has ended up inflicting secondary trauma through acts of commission and omission,” the report states.