Kerala stabbing incident: Crime Branch to probe Dr Vandana murder case

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala crime branch on Friday took over the probe into the murder of a young female doctor allegedly by a prisoner who was brought to the state-run Kottarakara hospital for a medical examination by the Police.

The district crime branch has taken over the investigation into the killing of a young doctor here recently by a patient she was attending to, police said on Friday.

Dr Vandana Das, a house surgeon at Azeezia Medical College Hospital, was working at the Kottarakkara taluk hospital as part of her training. She was stabbed to death by a man brought there by the police in the wee hours of Wednesday. 

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“The District Crime Branch will probe the matter now," a senior district police official told PTI. The accused, G Sandeep, a school teacher by profession, is currently under judicial custody.

He was brought to the hospital by police for treatment of a leg injury. He had been brought there by police after he dialled the emergency number 112, claiming his life was in danger. When local police located him, he was standing away from his home, surrounded by local residents and his relatives and had a wound on his leg and a stick in his hand.

He was taken to the hospital accompanied by his brother-in-law and a local political party leader. During the dressing of his wound, he got violent, initially stabbing the politician and the police there and then repeatedly stabbing Das also, who could not escape to safety. Das, who suffered grievous injuries in the attack, died a few hours after the incident.

Taking suo motu cognisance of the incident, the high court pointed out that it is the fundamental duty of all police officers to guard citizens, even at the cost of their own lives.

Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported that the doctors protesting against the horrifying murder of a young doctor in Kerala intensified their protest and they have demanded new legislation for the protection of hospitals with immediate effect. The protesting doctors also wanted the government to declare the hospitals as special protection zones in the wake of increasing incidents of attacks on doctors on duty. 

The young doctor’s killing created a furore in the state, following which the government decided to issue an ordinance to amend the hospital protection law.

Also Read:Kerala Horror: House surgeon stabbed to death with scissors by patient during treatment, doctors on strike