Chhattisgarh sterilisation tragedy: Toll touches 14, award-winning surgeon arrested

Bilaspur, Nov 13: The death toll of the sterilisation surgeries in a government camp here on Saturday 8 went up to 14 on Thursday. The state police also arrested surgeon Dr RK Gupta, who conducted the sterilisation surgeries and were looking for other doctors and assistants who were involved in the tragedy.

[Read: What foreign media said about Chhattisgarh sterilisation tragedy]

The arrest was made, the first in the case, after the National Human Rights Commission issued notices to the Chhattisgarh government, seeking a response within a fortnight.

Over 50 women were also hospitalised in the sterilisation fiasco.

The state's food and drug control department banned the sale of six drugs that were used in the sterilisation surgeries and samples of the drugs and injections used were sent to the Central Drugs Laboratory in Kolkata for examination.

The incident at Nemichand Jain hospital was not the only one of this kind though. According to a CNN-IBN report, four out of 28 men who underwent surgery in another government camp were also hospitalised on Wednesday, four days after the Bilaspur fiasco.

The arrested 59-year-old surgeon was awarded on the Republic Day this year for a record 1,00,000 sterilisation surgeries in his career, reports said. He was accused of operating upon 80 women in just a few hours with help of two assistants.

The Chief Minister's Office of Chhattisgarh tweeted on Wednesday saying a team of doctors from the AIIMS had reached Bilaspur via a special plane to take stock of the situation.

Oneindia News