A week after a PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) court in Lucknow asked authorities to ensure that Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) accused Atiq-ur Rehman be provided proper treatment and be referred to some higher/better medical centre if required, authorities had Mathura district jail have decided to take him to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi for check-up.
Rehman, who was arrested along with Kerala journalist Saddique Kappan en route to Hathras in 2020, suffers from a congenital heart condition, arotic regurgitation. At the time of his arrest, the 26-year-old was receiving treatment for his heart condition. He is presently lodged in the jail hospital.
Following the PMLA court’s instructions, the DG Prisons, Uttar Pradesh, issued an order for him to be taken to AIIMS, and the jail superintendent told TOI:
“The order has been issued but its written copy is yet to be received. We will send him there as soon as we get the order, which should be by Thursday and Friday.”
The jail superintended also claimed that Rehman’s condition is presently stable.
Previously
Rehman fell sick while he was being taken to the PMLA court for a hearing. He was thereby taken to a community health centre, from where he was shifted to the district hospital in Agra and then to the SN Medical College there. The doctors had thereby referred him to a higher centre (SGPGI, Lucknow, but according or AIIMS, Delhi), but according to TOI, authorities took him back to jail instead.
According to TOI, the authorities said that they had taken him back because they thought Rehman’s condition was “not life threatening”.
Rehman's Condition
Rehman's lawyer has told the court that he had a severe cardiac ailment and was under treatment at AIIMS in New Delhi for several years.
"A month before he was arrested in October 2020, he was told to get a Bentall procedure to replace the aortic valve from the doctor in AIIMS. Which is why we moved a plea to get him interim bail for 60 days, so he could get surgery in AIIMS," Mateen explains.
Explaining what happens to Rehman when he falls sick, Mateen said, "He gets anxious, he is unable to breathe, and his hands and legs begin to shiver. He sweats profusely and is unable to talk. We have taken him to hospitals in Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Aligarh, and to AIIMS in Delhi," he said.
(With inputs from TOI.)
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