New Delhi: Twenty-five year old Shamshaad who was undergoing treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) for tumours in his bones couldn't speak without breaking down several times while describing how he was assaulted by Delhi Police personnel on Wednesday afternoon.
Shamshaad had come along with his parents from Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh to get treatment for the tumours that cause him unbearable pain.
Around 2pm, he said, he was assaulted by the police personnel who rounded up all the people, including critically ill patients and their attendants, living on the footpath and in the subway in front of AIIMS, and relocated them to a government school in Green Park.
"I told them, ‘at least let me see my parents. They are old. They wouldn't know how to find me.’ But the policemen beat me up, without telling me or the others why or where they were taking us," he said.
Because of the pain and anxiety, Shamshaad said he threw up on the way. In front of him, was an untouched packet of food that had been distributed by an NGO.
Seventy-year old Sarju Das, who lost his son to cancer just four days ago, was also beaten up by police, he said.
"I have nobody here. Our house is in Bihar's Banka district. I was beaten up by them. I was sitting quietly, minding my own business, when they smacked a lathi on my back. I asked them 'have I stolen anything?’ Nobody listened to me. They just pushed my wife and me in the bus," he said.
Bishnu is worried that his five-year-old granddaughter who has cancer in her stomach and needs to visit doctors daily at the hospital will now not be able to seek medical assistance.
"Have a look at her stomach. See how bloated it has become. We need to treat her with hot packs every day. But all our stuff is in a disarray. We don't know whether we have got all our belongings," he said holding her granddaughter in his arms.
Similar is the case of Lakhpati, a woman who has come from Pillibhit in UP, to get treated for her breast cancer at the premier hospital in the national capital.
Lakhpati needed to visit the OPD for an injection on Thursday, but now, she doesn't know how she will be able to make it all the way to the hospital, and back.
Parlima Devi, who was living outside AIIMS for the treatment of her husband who has a heart ailment, said they were treated like garbage.
"Somebody told us that we can walk all the way to the hospital. My husband has a heart condition. He can't walk. He has already suffered enough today after being pushed into the bus. We were swept up like garbage. How will my husband go to the hospital now? Is it our fault that there is a lockdown? If anything happens to my husband, I'll never forgive these people," she said.
There are many other patients, some with kidney issues, some on wheelchairs, who cannot by themselves travel 1.5km to the hospital. They feel they are likely to miss their medical appointments now.
Ever since the lockdown was announced, hundreds of patients and their attendants who had come from different parts of the country to seek treatment at AIIMS have been in a state of anxiety.
Some of them who were on their way back home were stuck at the hospital and forced to live on the footpath and in the subway in front of the hospital.
Others who had appointments at the hospital have had the same cancelled. And almost everyone has after the lockdown been suffering from constant hunger because, they say, police are not allowing community kitchens, which were a regular feature outside the hospital, to function.
News18 reached out to officials in the Delhi Police and Delhi government seeking their comments. The story will be updated as soon as they respond.
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