Two staff held for beating mental patient to death in Cuttack’s SCB hospital

CUTTACK: Mangalabag police on Sunday arrested two outsourced staff of SCB Medical College and Hospital for allegedly beating a mentally-challenged patient to death around two weeks back.

The accused are ward attendant Jagannath Rao and security guard Dillip Kumar Pradhan. Both were working in the mental health institute of SCB MCH on an outsourced basis and had been hired from Manju Service and Nirakar Security Service, respectively.

DCP Khilari Rishikesh Dnyandeo said a team of doctors conducted postmortem of the deceased. “Although the doctors reserved their opinion on the exact cause of the patient’s death, we suspect it may have resulted due to assault as there were prominent injury marks on the body. Basing on the preliminary postmortem report and CCTV footages, we arrested two outsourced staff and produced them in court,” he said.

The final postmortem report is awaited and further investigation is underway, the DCP informed. Forty-year-old Srikant Das of Jajpur was undergoing treatment at the mental health institute of SCB. On September 30, he was allegedly beaten to death by the security personnel and attendants for reportedly attempting to escape the facility.

Later basing on the FIR lodged by his brother Binod Das, police registered a case and began investigation.

Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp

Download the TNIE app to stay with us and follow the latest