Mira Bhayandar: The Mira Road police are on the lookout for a 41-year-old caretaker who brutally assaulted a 78-year-old senior citizen at his apartment in Mira Road in an inebriated state.
The senior citizen-Chandrakant Shinde and his 74-year-old wife Madhuri stay in the Hatkesh area of Mira Road. Shinde who has retired from the Indian Railways is bedridden since he suffered a paralytic stroke on 11, July.
To take care of his bedridden father, his son who lives in Pen had hired the caretaker identified as- Babula Raghunath Naahak (41) through Prakash Nursing Home Bureau-an agency operating from the Marve Road area in Malad (west). Naahak joined work on 24, August.
The incident was reported at around 11 pm on 27, September when Shinde was alone in the house. Naahak, who was in a highly inebriated state, started tossing the chairs and other household furniture. Irate over being stopped, Naahak mounted a violent attack on Shinde by climbing over him and raining blows on his face, chest and legs.
Before fleeing the spot, he also threatened Shinde of killing his wife if he revealed about the incident to anybody. Upon returning, Shinde’s wife was shocked to find him in a badly injured state. She immediately informed one of their neighbours who called their family doctor.
After first aid treatment, Shinde who suffered multiple injuries all over his body was admitted to a nearby hospital. The chest CT scan reports detected rib fractures which according to doctors may need surgical stabilization.
It has been alleged that the police took their own sweet time to register an offence apparently due to jurisdictional confusion in such a sensitive and horrific crime against a bedridden senior citizen.
“Since the senior citizen had been brutally assaulted, we were waiting for the medical reports so that appropriate and stringent sections of the BNS could be inked in the FIR. We immediately summoned the operator of the nursing agency and questioned him about the accused. We have launched a man hunt and the accused will be behind the bars soon.” clarified senior police inspector of the Mira Road police station- Chandrakant Sarode.
Meanwhile an offence under the relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS ) for voluntarily causing grievous hurt and criminal intimidation was registered on 28, September against the accused who is said to be a resident of Borivali, but is now absconding.
The incident also raises a serious question mark on the operations of manpower supply agencies who recruit personnel without due care of verifying their antecedents. In this particular case, the accused would regularly come to the house in a drunken stupor, abuse and assault the elderly couple who were forced to endure the ordeal owing to their age and feeble state.
