How an air hostess was sexually assaulted while on the ventilator in Gurugram hospital

India’s women are not safe. Every day, women allege sexual assault and rape, making the country unsafe. One such incident is the alleged sexual assault of an air hostess who was admitted to a private hospital in Gurugram on April 6.

The woman was on the ventilator and in a semi-conscious state when the incident took place, she alleges.  As per the police, the incident took place on April 6, but the complaint was lodged at Sadar Police Station on April 14, a day after she was discharged from hospital.

What happened

The 46-year-old survivor had come to Gurugram for training on behalf of her company and was staying in a five-star hotel. According to Press Trust of India, a drowning incident at the hotel led to her admission at a private hospital for treatment.

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However, her husband shifted her to another private hospital on April 5. Here she was kept on a ventilator when a hospital staff member allegedly sexually assaulted her. According to her complaint, since she was in a semi-conscious state, she could not resist the sexual advances. The complaint further stated that two nurses were present nearby at the time of the incident but they did not interfere.

“During the treatment, on April 6, she was on a ventilator, during which some staff of the hospital sexually assaulted her. At that time, she was on a ventilator and could not speak and was very scared. She was also unconscious at the time of the incident, and two nurses were also around her,” the victim alleged in her complaint.

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What happened next

Upon her discharge, she informed her husband about the sexual assault. He then contacted the 112 emergency police and proceeded to formally lodge a complaint with the police authorities, with a legal advisor in attendance.

“Following a complaint filed by the victim, a case has been registered at the Sadar Police Station, Gurugram. A police team was rushed to the hospital to scan the duty chart and analyse the CCTV footage to identify the accused,” Gurugram police spokesman Sandeep Kumar said.

The police team has taken further action in the case, and the accused’s statement has been recorded before the magistrate. The police team will soon identify the accused and arrest him accordingly," he said.

The official position of the hospital authorities was to offer no comment on the matter. Separately, inquiries directed to the hospital’s security personnel yielded a response indicating no awareness of the incident.

Past instances of violence against air hostesses

Similar incidents of violence have taken place against air hostesses earlier. For instance, an air hostess was allegedly dragged and molested by an e-bike taxi rider while taking her home from east Delhi, reported news website India TV.

The incident took place on the Simon Bolivar Marg near Buddha Jayanti Park when she was returning home on the taxi bike, which she had hired in east Delhi. After riding for a few kilometres, the driver took his mobile phone, which he had handed the woman to hold, back from her and took a wrong turn. When she asked about it, he told her it was a short cut, the report further stated.

A source reported that the man stopped the motorcycle in a secluded location and forcibly dragged the woman towards a cluster of trees, where he assaulted her when she attempted to raise an alarm. The source added that a couple travelling in a car stopped their vehicle upon noticing the woman’s distressed state. The driver ran away when he saw them.

With inputs from agencies