Two sisters from Mahabubnagar district were allegedly drugged inside Gandhi hospital in Hyderabad's Telangana and sexually assaulted. One of the sisters alleges she was drugged within the hospital premises, taken outside the hospital and confined at an unknown location for several days. Both sisters went missing from the hospital on August 7. Her elder sister is still missing, she says. In connection with the case, the Hyderabad police arrested four men including a lab technician who worked at the state's nodal hospital to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shanta* aged 38 and her sister Latha*, aged 40, had arrived at Gandhi hospital with Latha's husband Ravi* on August 5. Ravi was admitted to the Gandhi hospital for liver treatment. According to the statement given by Shanta to the Telugu news channel, ABN, she was allegedly drugged within the hospital premises on August 7, Shanta has no recollection of the events afterwards. Shanta says she was found lying naked, unconscious within Gandhi hospital, a week later on August 14 morning.
Shanta accused Uma Maheshwar, a technician with the Radiology department, who is also a relative, of drugging her, “There were 5 to 6 of them. We refused to leave with them, as we were with a patient and had to take care of bills etc. They said they would handle everything and took me away, I don't know where they took me, somewhere inside. They drugged me, put something over my mouth and also injected something. I don't know what happened clearly, since August 7 I was gone,” said Shanta to ABN who has alleged that her sister was also sexually assaulted but is unaware of her whereabouts.
When both the sisters did not return to care for Ravi, he reached out to his son, Sharath* for assistance on August 9. Sharath arrived the same day and enquired with Uma about his mother and aunt's whereabouts but found no answers. He then took his father and left the hospital without a formal discharge on August 12. Sharath then allegedly received a call from Uma informing him that Shanta was lying naked and unconscious within the hospital premises. He returned to Hyderabad shortly after.
“All the while she lay unconscious and naked there no one approached her, she lay there till the nephew arrived at the hospital and put a cloth over her,” said Sandhya, a member of Progressive Organization for Women that is part of a five-member women-led fact-finding team inquiring into the case.
(Sandhya says Shanta was found lying unconscious near the seats at the outpatient ward)
Sharat took his aunt and returned back to Mahbubnagar, the family first approached the Mahbubnagar police with a complaint but no case was registered. No zero FIR was registered either. They were redirected to the Chilkalguda police station in Hyderabad where an FIR was registered on August 16.
Police inspector G Naresh told the media that Uma Maheswar and three others were taken into custody based on the woman’s complaint and an investigation has been taken up. “We are probing the case from all angles. We are scanning the footage from CCTV cameras at the hospital for further clues,” he told IANS.
In the meantime, the five members of a women-led fact-finding team who went to enquire about the incident at the Gandhi hospital were taken into preventive custody by the Lalaguda police on Tuesday. The activists called for an independent inquiry into the incident of rape and called for action against the perpetrators and hospital authorities for gross violations.
Sandhya said this was the first time that the police arrested members of a fact-finding team in the state. “They had always cooperated earlier,” she added.
The Gandhi hospital administration and the police officers investigating the case were unavailable for comment.