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Feb. 4: City police have begun investigations into the death of a nurse, who was working in a private hospital at Bhangagarh, following allegations of murder by her family.
Lalita Devi, 25, a nurse with Nemcare Hospital, had died on January 30. While the hospital claims that she was admitted to the hospital with diarrhoea and later suffered cardiac arrest, leading to her death, her family, which lives in Pati Darrang village under Sipajhar police station in Darrang district, suspects murder.
After Lalita’s death, the hospital informed her family and her uncle came to receive her body. When he and six staff of the hospital reached the village with the body, residents noticed that some teeth were broken and there were injury marks on her neck and back, sources in Sipajhar police station today said. “The locals raised two complaints: why the hospital informed the family after her death and not after she fell ill and why no post-mortem was done,” a Sipajhar police officer said.
He said after the girl’s family suspected murder, they started beating up the six hospital staff and the police had to come to their rescue. As the residents were angry, the police kept the six at the police station that night.
On January 31, Lalita’s family lodged an FIR with Sipajhar police station, following which the police registered a case (29/2013) under Sections 302 and 34 IPC and arrested the six. “We produced the six in the court of the CJM Mangaldoi, and sought the court’s permission to forward the case to Bhangagarh police station,” the official said.
Sources said Sipajhar police also sent the body to Guwahati for post-mortem.
SSP (city) Anand Prakash Tiwari said, “We are looking into the call details of the girl. We will also look into the post-mortem report and are using all methods to find out the exact cause of her death.”
Managing director of Nemcare Hospital, Hitesh Baruah, said the nurse had died of diarrhoea and cardiac arrest. “She suffered a cardiac arrest and was in our ICU. Her teeth broke as doctors used metallic items to open her teeth when she suffered a convulsion. She suffered injuries on her back because of cardiac massage normally done for a cardiac arrest patient.”
On why they did not inform the family about her illness, Baruah skirted the “illness” issue and said, “If we had not informed them, how did her family member come to receive the body?”
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