Guard controlling crowd beaten to death at GMCH
Two men, including contract staffer, who were accompanying a patient held
CHANDIGARH: A security guard at Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32, Chandigarh, succumbed to injuries after he was beaten up for preventing crowding at the Emergency as part of the Covid-19 guidelines. Two men, including a contractual sanitation worker at the hospital, have been arrested.
Shyam Sundar Pandey, 50, a resident of Raipur Khurd, died while undergoing treatment on Monday morning. His colleague Kamaldeep Singh, 32, had also sustained head injuries after they were manhandled around Sunday midnight.
Pandey was on duty at the main gate of the Emergency when a man injured in a brawl was rushed there from Ram Darbar. As only one attendant is allowed to accompany patients in the wake of Covid-19 outbreak, security guards stationed at the entrance to the building were trying to enforce the restrictions when those accompanying the injured man started abusing them and attacked them.
Pandey, on seeing the brawl, rushed to the spot and tried to intervene when even he was beaten up. He collapsed at the spot. Later, he was put on ventilator, but could not survive.
Police have arrested two men, identified as Rahul, 26, and Naveen, 23, who are both residents of Phase 1, Ram Darbar. “CCTV footage showed the duo hitting the security guard when he rushed to intervene,” said Baldev Kumar, station house officer, Sector 34.
While Naveen works as a private driver, Rahul is a contractual sweeper working at the same hospital. Rahul has a criminal past, and was convicted in a kidnapping case registered in Sector 32 in 2015, said police. Police said the preliminary postmortem shows no external injuries. The detailed report is awaited.
A case under Sections 147(rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly guilty of offence), 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide) and 304(i) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) was registered on Kamaldeep’s complaint.
UNION HOLDS PROTEST, DEMANDS JOB FOR KIN
Pandey is survived by his wife, 40, and a 10-year-old son, who studies in Class 5. He was the sole breadwinner of the family.
The employees’ unions protested at the hospital after Pandey’s death, demanding government job for his family as well as a policy to protect the staff.
“The director has assured us that Pandey’s widow will be given a job on the basis of her educational qualification,” said Sukhbir Singh, president, GMCH joint action committee.
Singh said that Pandey was a Covid warrior who died on duty, for which his family should also be given compensation by the authorities.
Meanwhile, the hospital administration has decided to increase the number of security guards at the Emergency, where at present 10 personnel are deployed.