Dr Arun Gadre, a prominent gynaecologist and author from Pune, claims he had been “accosted, cornered and forced to shout Jai Shri Ram” while on a morning walk in the heart of New Delhi on Sunday, 26 May.
Recollecting the sequence of event, Dr Gadre tells The Quint:
“An unfortunate incident occurred with me when I was on a morning walk in New Delhi on 26 May morning around 6 am. I was walking from Jantar Mantar’s YMCA to Hanuman Mandir. While returning...at some corner, I don’t know the exact location, 4-5 youths accosted me, cornered me and one of them asked me to say ‘Jai Shri Ram’.”
He added, “In my 60 years of life, I did not have such incidents. I was terrorised. I said, ‘Jai Shri Ram’. But they were not happy. One of them said, why are you talking so slowly and asked me to give a big shout. I started walking away from them. Fortunately, they did not harm me. They let me go.”
Dr Gadre said since the youth did not harm him, he did not complain to the police and instead narrated his ordeal to an old friend and senior journalist Anant Bagaitkar.
'Had I Resisted, Maybe They Would Have Harmed Me’
Reiterating that he was “terrorised” by the entire experience, Dr Gadre said, “Had I resisted maybe they would have harmed me.”
He said since the incident became viral on social media, he has been receiving a lot of calls from “different ideologies, cutting across party lines”.
Dr Gadre is known for his work towards the promotion of patient’s rights, universal healthcare and the social regulation of the private medical sector.
In an interview to BBC Marathi, Dr Gadre said that he still hasn’t recovered from the shock. He said that being a person who travels across the country to make good healthcare accessible, this is the first time something like this has happened with him.
‘Such Incidents Should Never be Repeated Anywhere in India’
Dr Gadre appealed to the government to ensure that “there are no such incidents anywhere in India in the name of religion, language and caste. Nobody should be subjected to such a forceful thing." He said the government will act on it and stop such incidents from being repeated.
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