Mumbai stampede: Shiv Sena men allegedly assault KEM doctor for numbering foreheads of victims

Two men, believed to be Shiv Sena workers, assaulted a senior KEM doctor in an attempt to protest the hospital's act of number the bodies of those killed in the deadly Elphinstone Road stampede in Mumbai.

IndiaToday.in  | Edited by Dev Goswami
New Delhi, September 30, 2017 | UPDATED 20:45 IST

Highlights

  • 1
    2 men allegedly assault KEM doctor over hospital number Mumbai stampede victims' bodies.
  • 2
    Men believed to be Shiv Sena members.
  • 3
    KEM attracted criticism for numbering foreheads of those killed in Friday's stampede.

A day after the deadly stampede at Mumbai's Elphinstone Road station, a doctor at the KEM Hospital in Parel, where victims of the accident were taken, were allegedly assaulted by two men, news agency PTI reported.

The alleged attack was over the hospital's act of marking numbers on the bodies of the Elphinstone station stampede victims, police said, according to PTI.

According to a police official who spoke to PTI, the two men, believed to be Shiv Sena workers, barged into the office of the forensic science head of the KEM hospital and assaulted him.

"The two barged into the cabin of Dr Hari[sh] Pathak and assaulted him. One of the accused, who brought a sketch pen with him tried to write a number on Pathak's forehead," the police official reportedly said.

"We have found membership identity-card of the Shiv Sena from one of the accused. We suspect that a few more persons are involved in the assault", he said, adding a probe was on.

The two accused have been detained. A case under section 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) will be registered, the officer said.

The King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital, a premier government-run facility in central Mumbai, came under criticism, especially on Twitter, after pictures of Friday's stampede victim did the rounds yesterday.

The photos showed the faces of those killed in a stampede on the narrow Elphinstone Road-Parel foot overbridge. The victims' foreheads were numbers with sketch pens, an action that several people said was insensitive.

The KEM Hospital, for its part, defended its actions the situation following Friday's stampede at the Elphinstone Road station on Mumbai's Western Railway line was chaotic.

"We took photographs of all the bodies, numbered them and displayed them to the relatives on a laptop screen" Dr Harish Pathak, the same person who was allegedly assaulted today, said in a hospital statement issued late last evening.

The numbers were erased after the autopsies, Pathak said, adding that it would be unjustified and unwise to criticise the 'scientific' method adopted by the hospital for "speedy, honourable and smooth identification" of the victims.

At least 23 people were killed after a stampede crushed people death on a foot overbridge connecting the Elphisnstone Road and Parel railway stations on Friday.

A day after the deadly stampede in Mumbai, Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal announced a slew of safety measures, including the empowerment of railway general managers to spend whatever is necessary for safety.

(With inputs from PTI)