Delhi Underground

Sandeep helped break Anna deadlock: Aide

A member of the newly-formed St Stephen’s College Alumni Association claims that its founding member,Sandeep Dikshit,was the actual “ice-breaker in the government- Anna tussle. Giving reasons for making the contention,he said it was Dikshit who had met Kejriwal on August 23 to discuss the stand-off. They had then called Salman Khursheed,“an old Stephanian” to Dikshit’s house and negotiated the terms of the compromise. According to the alumni member,it was after this meeting that Salman Khursheed spoke to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and efforts were made to reach some agreement with Anna Hazare.

The mystery of the ‘absconding’ patients

Panic struck the public at RML Hospital on Wednesday evening,hours after the blast at the Delhi High Court,when the police started tabulating records of the dead and injured. The list provided by RML Hospital stated that three of the 76 injured patients were “absconding”. Word spread like wildfire,and there were reports of a ‘CCTV search’ being undertaken. Realising that the situation was getting out of hand,hospital authorities rushed to the police chowki and clarified that the three patients were listed as “absconding” because they had been shifted to Max and Apollo hospitals against the advice of medical personnel. “We had listed them twice-once as LAMA (left against medical advice) and once as absconding. This created the confusion,but as soon as we realised it,we corrected the list,” an administrative official at RML Hospital said.

Rs 25,000 reward for a wild goose chase

The day the High Court witnessed a high-intensity blast,Delhi Police personnel went on a wild goose chase after a silver car,which they assumed contained the assailants. The search for the car was taken up with such earnestness that the police announced an “internal reward” of Rs 25,000 for anybody who could locate it. The incident,however,ended on a damp note with the car being found abandoned in Faridabad,and nobody pocketing the reward money. To add insult to injury,police also realised that the car had not connection with the perpetrators of the blast.

Good intentions,but at a bad time

About two hours after the blast,a group of aspiring blood donors arrived at RML Hospital and insisted on donating their blood. Incidentally,the blood bank of the hospital was well-stocked with as many as 300-400 units. When doctors informed them that the blood bank was full and they had to concentrate on the victims,the donors rushed to the media to air their grievances. Subsequently,a particular television channel even ran a report stating ‘RML doesn’t want blood for blast victims’. The blood bank in-charge was so perturbed by the report that she left her duties for a while to make a call to the channel,asking them to correct the error.

Spilling the beans earned him an earful

It was a pat on the back that this police inspector could have done without. Not realising that he was supposed to keep the arrival of Home Minister P Chidambaram at the blast site outside Delhi High Court under wraps,he announced to mediapersons that the minister could arrive any minute. The next thing he knew,a senior police officer had taken him aside,thumped him on the back and gave him an earful.

An overseas email to make cops happy

Though the probe into the Delhi High Court blast was transferred to the NIA within hours of the incident,police chief B K Gupta felt the need to boost the morale of sulking Special Cell personnel. He promptly circulated an email,sent to him by an NRI from the United States,praising the Delhi Police for the manner in which they had handled the situation by cordoning off the area and rushing the injured to the hospital. Seems like the police chief thought that a mail from foreign shores would be just the thing to lift the officers’ spirits in these troubled times.

The fire exit that could have let in danger

On the latter part of Black Wednesday,the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital was abuzz with high-profile visits. After BJP leaders Venkaih Naidu and L K Advani came to meet the victims in the afternoon,Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad made an appearance in the evening. At 9 pm,the Prime Minister went there straight from the airport on arrival from Dhaka. Five minutes after he left,Home Minister P Chidambaram made an appearance. The two entrances to the Trauma Centre were heavily guarded,with police as well as hospital authorities manning the gates in heavy numbers. Funnily enough,nobody noticed a very conspicuous fire exit right between the two entrances. Eager mediapersons and relatives,anxious to catch a sight of the Home Minister speaking to the bereaved,simply walked up the fire exit,entered the first floor through the open door and made their way down to the ground floor,landing right next to the Home Minister. It was that easy.