CUTTACK: In yet another incident exposing the criminal behaviour of the outsourced staff at the SCB medical college and hospital, a security guard was allegedly kidnapped at gunpoint and assaulted by three men, one of whom works as a driver in the hospital, reportedly over past enmity.
The incident occurred in the wee hours of Thursday. The critically injured security guard Chitta Ranjan Baral is currently undergoing treatment at the casualty ward of SCBMCH. The accused driver Sangram Singh and his aides are still at large, police said.
Sources said both Baral and Singh were engaged in the hospital on outsourcing basis. While Baral was recruited through Nirakar Security and Consultancy Service Pvt Ltd, Singh came through G Manju Service Pvt Ltd and worked as a driver of a battery-operated vehicle.
Hospital sources said the duo was involved in a dispute, which could have led Singh to assault Baral. As per the police complaint lodged by Baral, he was on duty when Singh came to him at around 1.20 am and asked him to join for a cup of tea.
Baral agreed and the duo went up to the Acharya Harihar Post Graduate Institute of Cancer (AHPGIC) where the two aides of Singh were waiting.
“The trio then kidnapped me at gunpoint. They took me to Dhabaleswar Gada in a bike. Then they took me in a car to an unknown place away from the city where they assaulted me mercilessly. After that, they pushed me into a pond and fled the spot. I somehow managed to swim to safety and hid myself at the backyard of a nearby house. As dawn broke, I managed to find a cement-laden vehicle in which I came to Bhagatpur. I informed our staff of the matter and they reached the spot and took me to the hospital,” Baral stated in his FIR.
Basing on the FIR, a case was registered and efforts are underway to nab the three accused, said officer-in-charge of SCB medical police outpost Maneswar Pradhan. Police have, meanwhile, called in Singh’s father for questioning.
The hospital was in news few days back after an outsourced male attendant of G Manju Service Pvt Ltd was arrested for posing as a doctor and molesting a 19-year-old woman undergoing treatment in the ICU at the new medicine ward.