Gopal Karanjit, 60, of Gokarneshwore municipality 4 boarded a taxi from his home Wednesday morning to go to Medicare Hospital at Chabahil for regular health checkup. Son Pravin took a motorcycle.
They reached the hospital at around 10 in the morning and Karanjit boarded another taxi to return home after checkup was completed at around 11:15 am. Son Pravin again took the motorcycle.
Karanjit started to have convulsions shortly after boarding the taxi (Ba 1 Kha 3851) for home. There was Helping Hand Hospital nearby. The driver stopped the taxi. But instead of taking Karanjit to the hospital, he dragged the convulsing Karanjit outside the taxi and fled leaving the patient by the roadside.
DSP with Kathmandu Police Hobindra Bogati said Karanjit was taken to the hospital after some time but he had already died by then. "Locals and police took him to the hospital after seeing him abandoned on the road. But the doctors declared him dead on arrival," Bogati told Setopati. He revealed that the doctors attributed the death to a heart attack. "He could have been saved if he were taken to the hospital earlier."
Metropolitan Police Circle Gaushala looked at the footage captured by the closed-circuit television cameras installed on the Chabahil-Jorpati road after death of Karanjit and summoned the driver to the traffic division at Baggikhana that very day.
The driver was arrested from there. The driver Kamal Bahadur Shrestha, 50, hailing from Melung, Dolakha stayed in Kapan. "I was scared after the passenger started to have convulsions inside my taxi. I, therefore, dragged him out and abandoned him on the road," Bogati quoted the driver as saying.
The police have lodged a public offense case at the Kathmandu District Administration Office against the driver. "He has been found to have committed an inhuman act. We have kept him in custody filing a public offense case," Sub-inspector with the Gaushala circle Sunil Malla said.
