Doctors and postgraduate students protest at St Stephen’s Hospital, Friday. (Source: Express Photo by Amit Mehra)
Around 12.30 am, the doctor’s reporting room inside the radiology department started getting calls from the emergency department. A consultant and a postgraduate student were supposed to be on duty, but nobody picked up. Hours later, hospital staff found that there was no consultant on duty, and in the room was the blood-soaked body of Shashwat Pandey.
The death of the postgraduate student was followed by outrage by batchmates, who claimed Pandey was left unattended, and that he had been a victim of harassment ever since he joined the hospital more than two years ago.
Fresh out of Manipal University, Pandey decided to follow in the footsteps of his father, Dr Sanjay Pandey, a radiologist. However, a confrontation at a seminar in AIIMS with a fellow batchmate changed Pandey’s life — after the accused’s behavior started growing “erratic”, his colleagues said. An inquiry had also been ordered against the accused over a confrontation with another doctor.
“He took a knife inside the hospital and was caught. after which he was sent for psychiatric evaluation. He once threw a landline phone at Shashwat. He would hurl abuses at batchmates and get into fights,” said a student. Read | PG student stabbed 20 times, throat slit at St Stephen’s Hospital; accused on the run
The accused also abused the victim on the radiology department’s official WhatsApp group, and issued death threats on Facebook messenger, his batchmates alleged. After hospital authorities asked him to go on a leave, Pandey moved to the hostel. “He was working on his thesis and preparing for the final examination in December,” said Dr Shubra Phillips, the victim’s aunt. “He kept relieved the man had been suspended, as he could concentrate on his thesis,” said Vasundhra, his cousin.
But the accused was never removed from the WhatsApp group, and had a track of Shashwat’s duty roster. Postgraduate students claimed it is impossible to enter the department without an ID card, which the accused still in posession of, despite being sent on leave.
