India / Bhim Army chief may suffer cardiac arrest, police denying medical care: Doctor

New Delhi: The physician of Chandrashekhar Azad flagged serious health issues of the Bhim Army chief, who was arrested in connection with the violence in Old Delhi's Daryaganj and sent to 14 days custody in Tihar, on Friday night requesting Union Home Minister Amit Shah to allow him to be admitted to the AIIMS for treatment without which he may suffer a sudden cardiac arrest.

In a series of tweets, Dr Harjit Singh Bhatti said that Azad is suffering from a disease that requires biweekly phlebotomy and has been under treatment for a year.

Phlebotomy, also known as venipuncture, is the act of drawing or removing blood from the circulatory system through a cut (incision) or puncture in order to obtain a sample for analysis and diagnosis. It is also done as part of the patient's treatment for certain blood disorders. It’s an important tool for diagnosing many medical conditions.

“He (Azad) is suffering from a disease which requires biweekly phlebotomy from AIIMS, New Delhi under Haematology Department from where he is under treatment from last 1 years. If not done then his blood might get thicker which may results into sudden cardiac arrest or stroke. I was told that Chandrashekar bhai repeatedly told Delhi police about his medical condition in Tihar jail but the police authorities are not allowing him to visit AIIMS (SIC),” he said in his tweets.

Calling the denial of access to medical care a "violation of human rights", Bhatti requested the Home Minister Shah and the Delhi police to facilitate his treatment in AIIMS for his conditions, failing which Azad may be subjected to a fatal stroke.

Azad was arrested and sent to 14 days' judicial custody and his bail plea was rejected by a Delhi court on December 21. The court further sent 15 others, arrested in connection with the violence at Daryaganj, to two days' judicial custody.

The FIR, which does not name anyone as accused, said the crowd at Delhi Gate was stopped from moving ahead using barricades and they were asked to disperse using loudspeakers and the mosque also made the announcement. It claimed that the crowd was chanting slogans against a proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and was planning to go to Jantar Mantar to protest.

It was an "unlawful assembly" as the crowd was protesting without the police's permissions, the FIR alleged.

Some of them started dispersing but after a piece of while information came that a crowd of 4,000-5,000 was coming from Northeast Delhi on Friday following which the crowd outside the Deputy Commissioner of Police's office in Daryaganj swelled to 8,000-10,000, it said.

On Thursday, Bhim Army members joined the anti-citizenship law protesters at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh and demanded the release of their outfit's chief Azad.

Carrying posters of Azad and BR Ambedkar, the father of India's Constitution, scores of members of the Dalit emancipation outfit raised slogans like "Bahujan-Muslim Ekta Zindabad" and "Jai Bhim"