A day after two people were killed in police firing in Mangaluru, a CCTV camera footage has surfaced that purportedly shows the police bursting tear-gas shells in the corridor of Highland Hospital on Falnir Road and beating up relatives and friends of those injured in the violent incidents and admitted in the hospital.
B.K. Imtiyaz, an eyewitness to the incidents at the hospital, told The Hindu on Friday, “I was there in the hospital from 5.30 p.m. to 1.30 a.m. The police entered the hospital at about 7 p.m. They even entered a ward.” Mr. Imtiyaz, who is also an activist with the Democratic Youth Federation of India, said the gas entered the ICU and wards.
“The police barged into the hospital from the entrance and went out after about 15 minutes,” he recounted.
Mr. Imtiyaz said the seriously injured — Afnan, Asif, Nasir, Imran, Abu Sali, Musthafa, and Mushraf — have been admitted in Highland Hospital. The other injured — the former Mayor K. Ashraf, Irfan, Samiulla, Nizam — are in the Unity Hospital. Ashraf K. Agandi, a member of the Popular Front of India, said 38 people sustained minor injuries in the police lathi-charge.
A visibly shaken B.S. Imtiyaz, secretary, South Kanara Salafi Movement, who was also in the hospital at that time on Thursday, said he had never earlier witnessed or heard about the police bursting tear-gas shells inside a hospital.
The Congress too alleged on Friday that the incident in the hospital was testimony to “police high-handedness”. K. Harish Kumar, president of the Dakshina Kannada District Congress Committee and also MLC, told reporters here that the police had damaged the hospital property. “It is police atrocity. We condemn it,” Mr. Kumar said.
‘Mere allegations’
Police Commissioner P.S. Harsha on Friday, however, termed it as “mere allegations”. According to the Commissioner, five civilians were injured in the incidents on Thursday.
