Indore:
Scenes identical to a Bollywood film played out at a government hospital in Indore today as an unidentified gunman dressed as a doctor reportedly entered the hospital premises, shot a murder accused undertrial at point blank range and then managed to escape.
The incident took place at around 4:30 am at MY Hospital where the gunman shot 25-year-old Ram Dayal, a murder accused undertrial. Even though Ram Dayal was rushed to the ICU, he had already died by then.
"The incident took place at 4:30 am. I heard the gun fire and saw the gun man fleeing. He was wearing a doctor's apron. I was the one on duty. I could not see his face," said Yashpal, one of the three jail guards who were on duty.
However, there is a twist in the tale. There is a possibility that Ram Dayal may not have been the gunman's target as the bed on which he was shot was never allotted to him until Sunday evening. The bed was earlier occupied by Jitendra, another murder accused, who wished to be shifted to another bed.
"If I had not changed the bed I would have been dead. I changed my bed last evening as I had to frequently go to the washroom and from bed number 17, it was inconvenient," said Jitendra.
The incident has left both the police and hospital authorities red-faced.
"There has been negligence on our part, we will investigate it. Also, we will be interrogating Jitendra in the case. The matter is being investigated and what has happened is quite worrying. We are also monitoring CCTV footage from the hospital for any possible lead in the case," said OP Tripathi, SP, Indore West.
"As it involves prisoners, there will be a magisterial probe. Police is going through CCTV footage, the cameras in the ward transmit live only 7-8 cameras footage is recorded. We will not be doing any parallel investigation. The negligence aspect is subject to investigation," said PS Thakur, director of MY Hospital.