AGRA: Nearly a week after a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Lucknow asked the Mathura district jail to ensure “proper treatment” of Atiq-ur-Rahman, 26, who was sent back to jail after he suffered a cardiac and respiratory disorder, prison authorities said they’ve decided to take him to AIIMS-Delhi for a checkup.
Rahman, a PhD scholar at Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut, was arrested last year with Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan and two others on the way to Hathras to meet the gang-rape victim’s family and charged with sedition and under UAPA. Later, the Enforcement Directorate had started investigating money laundering charges against them. Rahman was being taken to the PMLA court for a hearing when he got sick. He was taken to a community health centre, from where he was sent to the district hospital in Agra and then to SN Medical College in the same city. The doctors there referred him to a higher centre — SGPGI (Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences) in Lucknow or AIIMS in Delhi. But authorities took him back to jail instead.
Now, after the PMLA court in Lucknow asked authorities to ensure that Rahman gets the right treatment and is moved to a higher centre if needed, the DG Prisons UP has issued an order to take him to AIIMS. “The order has been issued but its written copy is yet to be received. We will send him there as soon as we get the order, which should be by Thursday or Friday,” jail superintendent Brijesh Kumar told TOI. “He is in the jail hospital now and his condition is stable.”
Prison authorities said they had taken him back because they thought his condition was “not life threatening.” Kumar said, “The (SN) medical college doctors did a complete checkup and prescribed some medicines, which we are giving him. Doctors advised to take him to a higher centre after being told that he was being treated at AIIMS-Delhi earlier.” Rahman has a congenital heart condition, aortic regurgitation, for which he was being treated at AIIMS before he was arrested. His father-in-law Sakhawat Khan had written to the DM about his condition, requesting that he be “provided urgent medical treatment at AIIMS or an equivalent centre” and moved the special PMLA court over it. The court has asked for a report on Rahman’s medical condition. The next hearing is on October 12.
