Medical student killed in ICU by a ward boy

A postgraduate medical student of the Assam Medical College Hospital (AMCH) in Dibrugarh was killed inside an ICU, allegedly by a ward boy, triggering an indefinite strike by the junior doctors of the hospital, police said on Friday. 

The body of the student, Dr Sarita Tasniwal, was found on Friday morning with a surgical knife stabbed inside the left side of her neck, lying on the bed of the doctor’s resting room inside the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), police sources said. 

At about 8 am, the nurses of the ICU found Sarita’s body with a disposable surgical knife stuck inside her neck lying on the bed of the doctor’s room after her night duty which lasted from 10pm on Thursday night to 6am on Friday, sources said. 

The doctors claimed that Sarita was working till 5.30am on Friday, after which she had gone to the doctor’s rest room. 

The ICU’s ward boy, Khiru Mech, along with four others picked up by police, confessed that he had killed Sarita, a first year obstetrics and gynaecology MD student, police said. 

Junior doctors and students launched an indefinite strike in protest demanding security for them, particularly women, punishment to Sarita’s killer and installation of CCTV cameras in ICUs to prevent such incidents in the future.