An angry mob stormed a hospital after a teenage girl was allegedly raped in an intensive care unit.
Rioting protesters clashed with baton-wielding police officers outside the Jagriti Hospital in the city of Kanpur in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state.
But the crowd turned on cops, throwing stones and charging back at their lines, in violent scenes caught on camera by eyewitnesses.
One police officer was kicked and punched unconscious after he found himself isolated and surrounded by demonstrators.
Violence broke out after news spread that a student named Akansha, believed to be 17 or 18 years old, had been raped in the hospital’s intensive care unit.
She had been rushed to the hospital after falling ill and losing consciousness at a party in the city.
Akansha claimed that she was drugged and raped by a ward boy, or nursing assistant, later that same night.
She said: “After I was brought to the ICU, my mother changed my clothes. Late at night, the ward boy showed up and said since your clothes are wet, they will need to be changed.
“I asked him to call a nurse or my mother but he refused. He said that there is no nurse available and my mother had gone back to the party and my father had gone to take medicine.
“Then he took me to the washroom and said not to feel shy in front of him.
“I had to change clothes in front of the ward boy. He then asked me to change my top as well and started unbuttoning my top himself. I ran away to my bed. He then ran away.
“The ward boy came again and injected me, which caused me to fall sleep. He took advantage of the situation and raped me.
“I could feel something wrong was happening but I couldn’t do anything as I was under the influence of the drug.”
Akansha’s father, who was not named by local media, said that he had been prevented from seeing his daughter that night.
He added: “In the morning I forcibly entered the ICU, where seeing the condition of my daughter’s clothes, I suspected that something was wrongs.
“I shook her awake and she started crying and told me about the whole incident.”
It is not reported whether police are investigating the rape allegations.
The identity and whereabouts of the accused are not known.
