A security guard of GTB Hospital was injured after being assaulted with a brick by a neighbour who accused him of spreading the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in north-east Delhi’s Harsh Vihar, the police said on Tuesday.
The security guard, 35-year-old Vijay Kumar, required multiple stitches in the head, but is out of danger and has been discharged from the hospital.
Ved Prakash Surya, the deputy commissioner of police (north-east), said that the 24-year-old suspect, Vikas, has been arrested and booked for voluntarily causing hurt and wrongful restraint.
Kumar lives with his family in B-block of Harsh Vihar and has been working as a security guard for the last three years at GTB Hospital, one of the designated Covid-19 hospitals.
Though he performs his duty near the Covid ward of the hospital, he said that he never faced trouble from the patients and their relatives. “In my neighbourhood too, people never caused me any trouble. This is because there are at least three guards and two other staffers working at GTB Hospital from my neighbourhood,” Kumar said.
His sister also works as a ward assistant at the same hospital.
The alleged assault took place while Kumar was exercising on his terrace on Sunday evening, minutes before he was to leave for work. His terrace shares its boundary wall with that of his neighbour Vikas.
In his statement to the police, Kumar said that Vikas asked him where he worked. “When I told him that I was a guard at GTB Hospital, Vikas told me that I worked at a ‘corona hospital’ and that I would spread the virus in the neighbourhood,” Kumar alleged.
DCP Surya confirmed that Kumar’s allegation was related to his work at the hospital. “Vikas accused him of spreading the virus and told him to be careful,” the officer said.
That led to a war of words between the two men and was allegedly followed up by Vikas and five-six of his friends barging into Kumar’s home and launching an attack that included hitting his head with a brick.
But Vikas, who is out on bail, had a different sequence of events to narrate.
“While Kumar was exercising, he was leaning against my terrace wall and risking its safety. When I told him to be careful, he threatened to infect me and get me admitted to the Covid ward of the hospital,” Vikas, a 24-year-old college student, said.
Vikas said that it led to an abusive exchange and eventually a fight, in which he too was assaulted, but he struck back with a brick. Vikas denied that he had any problems with Kumar working at a Covid-designated hospital.
The DCP said that further investigation would clear the actual sequence of events.
