AP: Doctor thrashed by police alleges whiskey planted in his car

New Delhi: Dr Sudhakar Rao, the former government doctor in Visakhapatnam, who was brutally beaten up by police several weeks ago, has said that three whiskey bottles were allegedly planted in his car so that the police narrative of him being a drunkard could be justified, newly available testimony has now revealed.

In the first week of April, Dr Rao was suspended from the area hospital of Narsipatnam after he had raised the issue of lack of N95 masks in his hospital with local officials in the district. Soon after his suspension, a video had emerged on social media which showed policemen in Vishakhapatnam brutally thrashing him and even tearing his clothes off.

At the time, police officials were quoted as saying that Dr Rao was a drunkard and was violating lockdown rules. However, Dr Rao's testimony to an additional metropolitan judge in Visakhapatnam, based on which the CBI has now registered a case against unknown police officials, alleges that he was wrongly confined, attacked and intimated for repeatedly asking for N95 masks for the safety of his hospital staff.

The Andhra Pradesh High Court had taken suo motu cognizance of the case after the video of policemen beating him up became public and had ordered a CBI probe in the matter.

Accordingly, the Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a case based on Dr Rao's testimony. In the testimony, the former government doctor alleges that after asserting that he had co-morbid conditions that made him more prone to a COVID-19 infection, he and his staff were not provided with the masks. He also mentioned that his team had to perform a C-section on a patient who was showing COVID-19 symptoms without these masks and that they were told anesthetists do not require masks.

Dr Rao had also recorded a video of the operation conducted on April 6 and tried to show it to the local MLA, who was not reachable the first few times. He added that he had met with local officials, including MLA Petla Ganesh at the Municipal Office and noted that all the officials had N95 masks on and when he raised the issue of lack of N95 masks with them, they allegedly "abused him" and "necked him" out of the meeting. He later spoke to media persons about the incident, two days after which he received his suspension orders, through an Ambulance driver at his hospital.

Significantly, after the video of Dr Rao being beaten by police officials was released, police at that time had claimed he was drunk and was not following norms of public hygiene.

However, Dr Rao has alleged that he was being followed on once occasion after the suspension and that two traffic policemen beat him up after asking him about his suspension and other details.

Dr Rao also said that a Rs 10 lakh cheque was taken from his car and that three bottles of whiskey were somehow placed in his car.

He also said that on an earlier instance when his son's motorcycle was stolen, the police refused to lodge a complaint and eventually had registered a case against his son for "violating lockdown rules". In addition, Dr Rao said that police officials had taken his mobile phone, bag and Rs 1,000 cash while he was trying to lodge a complaint about his son's stolen vehicle.