A female patient in her mid-twenties made an unsuccessful attempt to escape from Central Institute of Psychiatry (CIP), Ranchi, the incident around 8am on Thursday once again exposing porous security at the premier mental health facility in the state.
Sources at CIP said the patient managed to scale the more than 15-feet-high boundary wall unnoticed, but her clothes (the pink salwar-kameez that she was wearing at that time) got caught in the barbed wire on top. She was clicked on mobile phone camera sitting on the wall by a visitor who then raised an alarm.
It took six guards, including two women, more than 30 minutes to bring her down using a ladder and convincing conversation.
Officials at CIP conceded that a fall from that height into the undergrowth below could have been fatal for the woman. "She would have landed on a rocky bed covered in shrubs. Head injuries could have killed her and her body would have remained undiscovered for days," said one.
CIP director D. Ram claimed they foiled the escape because they were alert. "Mental patients usually have a tendency to run away. We had a proper security in place. So, she couldn't," Ram said, but did not explain how the woman had managed to leave the female ward and scale a wall without being spotted.
Another official said the CIP compound was lined with trees and that might have provided the patient enough cover to reach the wall unnoticed.
On security arrangements, director Ram said they had eight guards in the female section, and around a dozen in the male section and at the gates. "At ward levels, there are attendants, besides CCTV cameras," he said.
Set up in 1918, CIP currently houses over 550 patients across its 16 wards (nine male, six female and a family unit) spread over 210 acres. It is hogging headlines for wrong reasons this year.
On July 4, a 45-year-old patient had gone missing from CIP where he was admitted in June. The decomposed body of Bhola Pandit, a resident of Jamshedpur, was found on the premises 12 days later, prompting the Congress to demand a murder probe.
Patients have managed to escape from the facility in the past too. In August 2004, as many as four had fled.
