Patient at de-addiction centre‘tortured to death’, 2 arrested

MEERUT: A 45-year-old patient, admitted to a private rehabilitation centre in UP’s Meerut district on Oct 15, was allegedly choked and tortured to death by the de-addiction unit’s operators early on Monday. The horrifying incident was captured on CCTV and widely circulated online. In the purported video footage, the patient could be seen bound and gagged by four persons. Two of them were arrested on Tuesday.Levelling serious allegations against the ‘Naya Savera’ centre situated in Amehda village, the victim’s younger brother Asar Mohammad said, “We received a call from the centre stating my brother, Mohammad Fahmid, who was suffering from substance abuse, was in a serious condition and asked us to visit the hospital. On reaching the hospital, we found him dead. Later, when our family procured the CCTV footage through an internal source, we were shocked to see what exactly happened that night. My brother was tied and gagged. And when he did not die for three hours, he was choked to death.”Meerut SP (rural) Abhijit Kumar said, “An FIR has been registered against the rehab centre’s workers, Sunil Kumar and Arvind Singh, under BNS section 103 (1) (murder). They were arrested on Tuesday. The veracity of the disturbing footage is being checked. The body has been sent for postmortem. Preliminary investigation did not find any sinister motive behind the gruesome act, and the process for further action is underway.“In the purported CCTV footage, around 1am on Oct 19, four persons could be seen tying a patient’s hands and feet as he lies on a bed. After restraining his limbs, they forcibly cover his mouth with a cloth and gag him. The patient slowly becomes motionless. The footage also shows a room where about 12 other patients remain asleep.