Amidst the coronavirus scare, it will be unforgivable not to review the aftermath of the anti-Muslim pogrom in Delhi in the last week of February 2020. While bodies of Muslims were being discovered from the drains of North East Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal and his cabinet were inaugurating low-floor buses in the city. The report by volunteers of the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan who facilitated access to healthcare for victims of violence between 25 February to 1st March 2020 is a devastating and disturbing account of the role of the Delhi government and a scathing blot on the medical professionals in Delhi who showed brazen bias in treating and caring for injured Muslims brought to hospitals.

DURING THE LAST WEEK OF FEBRUARY 2020 IN THE INDIAN CAPITAL DELHI, when young activists were ferrying the injured from one hospital to another or from the affected areas to the hospitals or from hospitals to the camps in their private cars, ambulances were missing from the government hospitals of Delhi.  While people were dying and the injured needed treatment and care, “injured had no means to reach hospitals even when they were able to escape the violent mob alive.”

In times of war, we have the International Committee of the Red Cross in many parts of the world. In times of internal conflicts in India, we have no agency -national or international except some good Samaritans who risk their lives and care for the injured and provide succour to the families of those killed -at hospitals, homes and detention centres.

This author was witness to the state of affairs at the Lok Nayak Jayprakash Narayan Hospital on the night of 25 February. I saw young activists ferrying the injured in their cars as no ambulance was available. While I was there, a public transport bus had to come to the door of the hospital because there was only one stretcher in the whole hospital and that was perhaps at some nook from where the attendant could not retrieve.  The young activists, who had been serving the injured day and night said that “now it is difficult to go inside the hospital as they have been ‘identified’ as those who care for unknown injured. I went inside the hospital, attempted to trace the injured, but could not identify the normal patients from those who had been brought from the violence-affected areas. No special care was available for those seriously injured and, in my presence, a seriously injured person was being shifted in an activist’s car to Guru Nanak Hospital.

The Jan Swasthya Abhiyan report records that, “From the night of 24th February 2020 till 1 March 2020, North East Delhi has seen unprecedented violence, directed especially against minorities in the areas of Ashok Nagar, Mustafabad, Jafrabad, Seelampur, Maujpur and Shiv Vihar. Mosques have been attacked, houses burnt, and people hunted down in the streets by mobs.”

The Jan Swasthya Abhiyan report states that “From the 25th of February onwards, we have been attempting to coordinate the public health system response to survivors and victims of the violence that erupted in North East Delhi. Far from providing healing from the trauma that victims have faced, we have found that the public health system itself has ended up inflicting secondary trauma through acts of commission and omission.”

If you are weak-hearted, the barbarism of the police will make you throw up. Can you imagine that when confronted by a family about their missing son, the police personnel on duty said, ‘he has been sent to a hospital.” Upon being asked, “Which one, there is no reply.” Later on, the parents learn that the person was dragged by the police and given to the mobs. He is since missing.

Mobs were blocking ambulances and the police was stopping ambulances and private vehicles in the name of ‘law and order’ till Justice Murlidhar of the Delhi High Court passed an order in the dead of night on 26 February, directing the police to allow the sick and injured to be treated and ensure the movement of ambulances.

“In three cases, the patients reported being attacked by the police themselves and beaten by lathis. In addition to gunshot wounds, sharp and blunt trauma, we were also told of and shown pictures of burns. One woman whose husband and daughter are admitted in a tertiary public hospital told us that they heard a ruckus on the street, looked out to from their house to see what was happening, and acid was thrown on them by an unknown person in a mob.”

“When the two persons burnt by acid escaped and hid in a mosque, they then walked almost three kilometres to a point where they could find a private vehicle to get to the hospital. The time-lapse between the assault and reaching the hospital was about 8 hours – precious time in cases of burns.”

The Aam Aadmi Party Delhi government did not do anything to dispel the fear lurking in the minds of the families of the injured who were afraid to go to the Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital and the Lok Narayan Jay Prakash Hospital for fear of prosecution by the police filing the medico-legal records while admitting the injured at these government hospitals.

How disgusting and sad the situation was can be realized from the fact that “the fear of state institutions extends to ambulances with families reporting that they are reluctant to call on 102 for government ambulances and instead feel safer accessing private/ charitable hospitals using private vehicles or auto rickshaws.”

Another pernicious role was that of the attending doctors. The Oath of Hippocrates was forgotten in letter and spirit. Doctors were negligent, biased, carefree, hate-filled and even in a denial mode while attending to the injured Muslims brought to them.

Will the Indian Medical Association identify the doctors about whom it is mentioned in the report that, “Patients and volunteers both reported that injured persons being called “ugravadi”  (militant) and “atankvadi”  (terrorist) by doctors. Some said that when they requested prompt treatment, they were told “What will you do if we treat you? You will go back on the streets and be violent”. These are also the exact words that a volunteer heard when he was waiting to take detainees from the police station to the hospital. A volunteer at a shelter who had been accompanying victims to seek care reported that doctors at casualty had asked some victims the full form of NRC and CAA.”

“It is disturbing to see that health professionals are using this to shame patients in casualty, who have suffered grave violence.”

“In one case a family member of a deceased man told us that he brought his brother in law alive to the hospital. He had been badly injured by a bullet and the family had rushed him to GTB hospital. Once he went into casualty, the family was just asked to wait outside. When they tried to intervene, they were told, “Why don’t you only come and treat your relative? Are you the doctor or me?” They kept waiting for many hours and finally went inside again to ask. They were told that their patient is no longer in casualty. Then after asking around, they were told that the person is dead and the body has been shifted to the mortuary for post mortem.”

Reacting to this report, a young Sikh activist, said, “These doctors sullied the name of Guru Tegh Bahadur while treating the injured. Either the doctors should learn to behave or the nomenclature of the Ninth Sikh Guru must be dropped from the government hospital.”

Neither the police nor the hospitals enabled the identification of missing persons or the proper filing of medico-legal documentation, including putting MLC numbers and Post-mortems.

“The entire “health machinery” of Aam Aadmi Party’s Delhi government seemed to be in tandem with the lumpen who was on a killing spree,” said the young Sikh activist.

The Jan Swasthya Abhiyan has sought hospital liaison officers, specialists like paediatricians and gynaecologists and surgeons, written orders from the health ministry to complete documentation, the extension of the Farishtey scheme to victims of the violence and the setting up of a toll-free number, operationalize mohalla clinics in the affected areas and arrange mobile vans with medics and paramedics.

If Kejriwal will be free from low-floor buses and branching out to give the Delhi model to Punjab, some of these may happen. Die-hard fans of AAP and Arvind Kejriwal may listen to the full interview of social activist Harsh Mander.

Have things changed since the last two weeks? I do not see any evidence of that. The trust between the people and the official machinery has collapsed. I cannot help but recall the barbarism depicted in the Animal Farm by George Orwell. Otherwise, I still look for some explanation.

As the pogrom was underway, the charitable hospital -Al-Hind stood out as a shining example of how to rise to the occasion during difficult times. They were the real Farishteys -angels, and not the propagandist ones of the AAP government in Delhi.