HYDERABAD: Taking a serious note of the gang-rape at Gandhi Hospital, State Home Minister Mahmood Ali and Excise Minister V Srinivas Goud held an emergency meeting with Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar and other police officials on Tuesday, instructing them to expedite the investigation and take stringent action against the accused. Srinivas Goud also enquired about the incident with Gandhi Hospital Superintendent Dr M Raja Rao.
Meanwhile, the administration of the hospital, which is now under fire for the lack of safety for women patients and attendants in the light of the incident, doubt whether the atrocity even took place. Though the authorities said they were not ruling out any possibility, the tone and tenor of the hospital Superintendent Dr M Raja Rao suggested that the rape might not have occurred at all. “Our hospital is very safe. Until the police approached us, we did not even know that a gang-rape had taken place on our premises,” Dr Raja Rao said.
Responding to the victim’s claim that leaving an empty room unlocked helped the staffer commit the crime, Dr Raja Rao said that no room in the hospital was vacant at the time. “There are no rooms vacant anywhere on the hospital premises. In fact, we have been facing an acute shortage of space. Even doctors have no space in the hospital to rest,” he said.
He added that the hospital had more than 150 CCTV cameras and assured that all the employees of the hospital would cooperate with the law enforcement agencies in their investigation.Telangana Mahila Commission chairperson V Sunita Laxma Reddy also visited the hospital on Tuesday and met the superintendent. Speaking to the reporters afterwards, she said that she would not be able to say with certainty how the incident happened until the missing elder sister was found.