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Portable ventilator stolen from BHU’s Trauma Centre

Varanasi: Posing as a service engineer, an imposter stole a portable ventilator from Banaras Hindu University’s (BHU) Trauma Centre on June 8th. The Varanasi city police have booked the fraudster for the act and investigations are on to find him.

The BHU university authorities filed a case against the man five days later when the robbery came to light on Saturday.

Trauma Centre in-charge Prof S.K. Gupta said, “A portable ventilator of the hospital was lying defunct in yellow-red area of the campus due to technical snag. On June 8, a man met the nursing officer of the area claiming that he was a service engineer and had come to repair the ventilator. However, without reporting anything further, he left the campus with the machine.”

Inspector Lanka Ashwini Chaturvedi, said, “Police are trying to identify the fraudster with the help of CCTV footage of the Trauma Centre. As the theft took place in a high security zone, the security personnel deployed there are also being interrogated.”

Following the incident getting viral on social media, the varsity officials got the news about it on Saturday morning. A case was lodged immediately through the proctorial board of the university to the city police.

The officers of the Proctorial board also questioned the Trauma Centre staff and the security authorities as they were present on duty during the time of the theft.

Along with the interrogation, as the Trauma Centre is resourced with CCTV cameras, evidences will also be collected through them.

The Inspector said, “Efforts have been intensified to nab the thief.”

During a time when the country is in need of ventilators everyday with the growing number of people requiring it due to covid-19, such incidences rob the lives of patients who could be saved if the ventilator was available.

The Center For Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy reported that India had close to 50,000 ventilators on April 20th, 2020, which will no way cater its 1.3 billion population if things get any worse. Uttar Pradesh has a total of 7,035 ventilators, minus the one stolen. Every life-saving machine is necessary for India to save its citizens.

In these times, it is important for us to understand the importance of safety rather than thinking about the fraud ways to fill pockets.