The rehab centre in Surat where a man was allegedly beaten to death by attendants was running without clearance from the State Health Department.
Dhaval Rathod, 32, had been admitted to Reva Rehab Centre in Dumas a day prior to his death. The family says he was addicted to sleeping pills.
Says younger brother Himanshu, 30, “Dhaval was crying when we finished all the procedures and dropped him at the rehab centre on February 28. Little did I know that it would be the last time I saw him.”
Dhaval, who had done graduation, was the second of three sons of Jayantilal Rathod, a farmer from Thara village in Banaskantha. The eldest, Shailesh, is a police inspector, currently posted at the Police Training College at Junagadh. Himanshu works with a power distribution firm, Dakshin Gujarat Vij Company Ltd, and was posted in Surat.
Himanshu told The Indian Express: “Dhaval had been having difficulty sleeping and had got addicted to sleeping pills, as well as pain relief drugs. He didn’t drink or take drugs, but we wanted him to end his addiction to pills and tried several solutions.”
The brother adds that the pills were also hurting Dhaval’s normal routine, as he could not get up on time to open the milk parlour he ran in the village in the morning. Finally, they gave up the shop, Himanshu says.
As per Himanshu, they consulted various doctors in Banaskantha and everybody suggested that Dhaval be admitted to a drug de-addiction centre for some time.
“We searched online and found Reva Rehab Centre in Surat,” he says, adding that since he was himself posted in Surat, they decided to admit Dhaval there.
The family says they arrived in Surat with Dhaval on February 28, and got him admitted to the centre the same day, with owner Nehal Solanki, who is among the six now under arrest, allegedly helping complete the formalities. Nehal’s husband Vinay Solanki works at the government-notified drug rehab centre.
“Dhaval was crying when I left. But we planned to keep him at the centre only for a couple of months and get him back after that,” Himanshu says.
As per locals, Nehal started the centre in a rented property with Vinay’s support, and it was launched with much fanfare, with advertisements in local dailies and videos on various social media platforms. The centre charged Rs 15,000 per month for three months for a patient, including accommodation, food, medicines and doctors’ examinations, but the overall fees could vary. As per the Rathods, on the night of March 1, Dhaval had an argument with one of the staffers over taking his medicines, after which they beat him. Himanshu, who says he was restless after dropping Dhaval, says: “At 9.30 pm, I received a call from Nehal saying Dhaval’s health was not good, that he had low blood pressure and his heartbeat was low, and that he had been taken to New Civil Hospital. I arrived to find him dead.”
He says he managed to track down and talk to a fellow inmate at the drug centre, who told him Dhaval shared a room with two others. He said after Dhaval refused to take his medicines, an attendant got angry. “Jignesh Desai slapped him on the face. Hearing Dhaval’s shouting, the other staffers, Rohan Sanghani, Shailesh Vaghela and Dilip Joshi, rushed over and held Dhaval down, tying his hand with ropes, making him lie on the bed, and grabbing his legs.”
According to Himanshu, the patient told him that one of the attendants repeatedly hit Dhaval with a wooden stick on the back, leaving him severely wounded. “Later, they called up an ambulance and took him to New Civil Hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival.”
All the attendants are under arrest.
In their primary postmortem report, doctors have mentioned injury marks on different parts of Dhaval’s body, and attributed the cause of death to “severe head injury caused by some object”.
The Dumas Police Station, which first lodged a complaint of accidental death, has now added murder charges and started a probe. Inspector N V Bharwad said their preliminary probe indicated Dhaval was badly beaten, and that other patients had also complained about this.
“The head injury caused Dhaval’s death… The owners of the rehab centre have no documents from the Health Department to start such a centre. They were hiring doctors and paying them,” said Bharwad.
Besides Dhaval, there were 30 patients at the centre, all men, aged between 21 and 55 years of age, including some from outside Gujarat.
Bharwad said: “We called their family members to take them back home. There are two other similar centres running in the police limit area of Dumas. We will check their documents and take action against them too if needed.”
The Reva Rehab Centre in Surat. (Express photo by Kamal Saiyed) 
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