Assam: Medical student killed in ICU by a ward boy

Guwahati, May 9: A post graduate 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 8am, the nurses of the ICU found Sarita's body 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 when 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.

The 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 in the ICUs to prevent such incidents in future.

Talking to the media, the agitating doctors urged the faculty to also join the strike in support of their demands.

Police suspected that the culprit may have attempted to rape her but unable to do so, killed her. Sarita, hailing from Sibsagar district, had passed her MBBS from the AMCH, college sources said.

She was to get married to a fellow doctor on July 7, her family sources added.

PTI