Jailed ex-IPS officer Amitabh Thakur hospitalised in Lucknow over cardiac ailment

Dr BN Shukla, Chief Medical Superintendent of BRD Medical College, confirmed that Thakur was brought to the hospital and he was showing symptoms of a heart ailment. “He was diagnosed with a heart-related problem. Then we referred him to Lucknow for advanced medical care,” Shukla said.

Thakur was sent in an ambulance equipped with an advanced ventilator system, he added.

Earlier, speaking to the media after being produced in court for a hearing, Thakur had claimed that he was on fast-unto death and would continue the protest until he was provided access to the CCTV footage and DVR (digital voice recorder) recordings of Shahjahanpur railway station where he was arrested on December 10.

Thakur had also claimed that he wrote to senior government officials and the Shahjahanpur district administration, requesting the CCTV footage and DVR recordings. His lawyer Abhishek Sharma said Thakur claimed that he was taken into custody from inside a train at the railway station where police misbehaved with him.

Superintendent of Deoria district jail Prem Sagar Shukla, however, denied the claim, stating that Thakur was not on any hunger strike in the prison.

He confirmed that Thakur had written letters to senior officials through the jail administration, formally requesting access to the CCTV footage and related DVR recordings.

In a video circulating on social media, Thakur, while in police custody, was purportedly heard saying the recordings were being deliberately withheld to shield the policemen who had allegedly misbehaved with him (at the time of his arrest).

In the first week of January, Congress state president Ajay Rai had visited the Deoria jail and met Thakur.

After coming out of jail, Rai told the mediapersons that, “Amitabh Thakur is being harassed and troubled. The Yogi government is taking revenge against him. Inside the jail, he is not being given proper food and other facilities. He has been locked in barracks, and is being watched constantly through CCTV cameras. He was sent to jail after he took up the fake cough syrup case. The Congress stands firmly with him.”