Cabbie dumps passenger in throes of heart attack

Published On: March 29, 2019 06:00 AM NPT By: Biken K Dawadi


KATHMANDU, March 30: Prabin Ranjit of Gokarneshwar Municipality-4 on Wednesday took his father, a patient of diabetes and high blood pressure, to Medicare Hospital at Chabahil for a medical checkup. Prabin was on his motorcycle but had his father, Gopal Ranjit, use a taxi, thinking pillion-riding would be too exacting for the ailing 60-year-old.

The two left home at 9 am with Prabin on his motorbike leading his father in the cab . After the checkup, which ended at around 11:15 am, Prabin hailed another taxi for his father for the ride home. He again led the way on his bike while the taxi followed.

However, barely 15 minutes into the trip, unforeseen disaster struck. Gopal, who was in the seat next to the driver, had a sudden heart attack and started shaking frantically. Prabin on the bike had lost sight of the taxi .

Startled by the passenger's shaking, the cabbie stopped the taxi and jumped out. They were barely 200 meters from Helping Hands Hospital. What the cabbie did next was quite expected, given that those in this line of work are generally helpful to passengers needing prompt medical attention.

Video footage captured by a CCTV camera nearby shows the cabbie pulling the passenger out of his seat and leaving him at an open space beside the hospital. He even dragged the elderly man after he was already out of the taxi, carefully took one last look at him and then slowly walked away and took off.

Some locals and police on duty saw the man in distress lying on the ground and rushed him into the nearby hospital. However,Gopal was declared dead upon arrival inside the hospital.

According to DSP Hobindra Bogati, spokesperson at Metropolitan Police Range Office, Teku, the cabbie had acted inhumanely. “There was a hospital just 200 meters away and he could easily have taken the poor man there.”

The Ranjit family has filed a complaint at the Metropolitan Police Office (MPO), Gaushala as the incident occurred along the Chabahil-Baudha road section. Chief of the MPO, DSP Sunil Malla, told Republica that they initially narrowed the list of suspect taxis to four since it was difficult to identify the license plate number. “We decided to call in the four cabbies for questioning,” he said. “And the first cabbie brought in by traffic police admitted that it was he who had dumped the heart attack patient.”

According to Malla, Kamal Bahadur Shrestha, 50, of Melung Rural Municipality, Dolakha, confessed immediately that he had been flomoxed by his passenger suddenly going into a heart attack.

“We have started to probe the case under the Public Offense Act,” DSP Bogati told Republica. “It is not clear if any foul play could be imputed." Nepal has no Good Samaritan law on the books. Bogati also said that the post-mortem on the deceased has been completed at TU Teaching Hospital and police are now awaiting the report .


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