UP: Hospital owner, booked over oxygen shortage rumours, arrested for assaulting TV staff

LUCKNOW: A Lucknow-based private hospital owner, who was earlier booked for "spreading rumours" about oxygen shortage, has been arrested for allegedly assaulting an employee of a TV news channel, police said on Tuesday.

Sun Hospital's Akhilesh Pandey was arrested on Monday after a complaint was filed by Nitin Mishra, Station House Officer, Vibhuti Khand, Chandra Shekhar Singh said.

Mishra in his FIR alleged that he had gone to the hospital in Gomti Nagar on Monday for advertisement of his channel when Pandey confined him for hours, beat him up and also took his gold chain and cash.

The FIR was lodged under IPC sections 392 (robbery), 342 (wrongful confinement), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation).

Pandey's lawyer Abhinav Nath Tripathi told PTI, "The executive of the channel misbehaved with my client. He was trying to blackmail him. The hospital had CCTV footages which police took away and have deleted the related footage."

Tripathi further said that they have applied for bail and accused the police of not entertaining Pandey's complaint against the news channel employee.

However, police has denied the charge of being vindictive against Pandey.

The hospital's owner had earlier been booked on May 5 for allegedly giving wrong information about the availability of oxygen at the facility and turning away patients.

The district administration had filed an FIR against him after officials found ample oxygen stock in the hospital.

Talking about this matter, Tripathi said, "We had gone to Allahabad High Court with a complaint against the administration."

"This is an effort to intimidate him (Pandey)."

"We got relief from the Allahabad High Court on May 11. The court had stayed any coercive action against Pandey in connection with the case. We have written a letter to Allahabad High Court Chief Justice seeking relief in the matter," he added.