A Delhi court sentenced a male nurse of a government hospital to one-year imprisonment for molesting a patient — observing that it is a serious problem if women are not even safe while being medically treated. Metropolitan Magistrate Ekta Gauba awarded the jail term to 32-year-old Brij Bihari Rathore, who was working as a nurse at Guru Gobind Singh Hospital in Raghubir Nagar — for molesting a woman patient by indecently touching her while treating her. It was alleged that the nurse called her later and had asked her to meet him personally. While convicting the nurse, the judge said, “ I am of the considered view that testimony of the victim is clear, convincing and reliable and no material has come on record which falsify her evidence and the other prosecution witnesses have fully corroborated the version of the victim.” The court also rejected the accused’s plea that he be released on probation. It said according to a latest judgment of the Supreme Court, benefit of probation cannot be extended to the accused considering the “heinous crime” i.e. crime against women, which the man had committed, and the social conditions prevailing in society. According to the prosecution, the woman, along with her mother and brother-in-law, had gone to the casualty section of Guru Gobind Singh Hospital on the morning of March 17, 2008. There, Rathore gave her an injection and told her mother to bring a glass of water. In the mother’s absence, he wrote his name and phone number on a slip and gave it to the woman patient, the prosecution said. While giving her injection, Rathore indecently touched her, but the patient did not disclose it to her mother, police said. But later, Rathore began calling her on her mobile and asked her to meet him, even as the woman and her family members scolded him. When he did not stop, she approached police and lodged an FIR against him. Rathore, however, denied the allegations and claimed that the woman’s husband and brother-in-law were involved in destroying the property of the hospital, which had registered a case against them. That is why, Rathore claimed, the woman and her family had filed a cross-case against him.
