Will prove innocence, says Dr Rahul Ghule

As prison authorities shunted Dr Rahul Ghule, medical officer at Arthur Road Jail, for allegedly fudging records of NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal to facilitate his admission to St George Hospital, the former has refuted the charges. Dr Ghule claimed that he had done nothing but attended to a medical emergency of his patient.

The doctor said that he hadn’t made changes in the documents. He also said that he did not go to prison and only went to St George Hospital when the doctors informed him about Bhujbal’s deteriorating health. On the other hand, the prison department has launched an enquiry against medical superintendent Dr Bharat Bhosale after Dr Ghule made allegations against him.

While on Thursday, the prisons department confirmed that Dr Ghule manipulated the admission documents of Bhujbal and the matter has been sent to the health department which is Dr Ghule’s original department. Talking to The Asian Age, Dr Ghule said that he was merely attending to an ailing Bhujbal and he would fight with the authorities until proven innocent. “For more than a month, two of Bhujbal’s teeth from right jaw were hurting and needed to be attended to. It was a routine check-up and he had a medical history of blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis and retinopathy. It was my holiday when he was supposed to be taken which was scheduled since two days,” said Dr Ghule.

He further said “I didn’t go to the prison, I went directly to the hospital and discussed the matter with the doctors who confirmed that his BP had dropped to threatening levels. He was then admitted to the medicine ward of the hospital.”

Dr Ghule said that he acted according to the situation. “I am ready for an inquiry. This is a way to put pressure on me because I wrote to the CM about the bribes taken by Bhosale to give facilities to VIP patients,” added Dr Ghule. He now intends to go on a hunger strike from saturday morning to get “justice”. “This is to get justice against corruption that takes place in jail and to fulfill my demand of an unbiased investigation,” said Dr Ghule.

DIG Rajan Dhamne recorded Dr Ghule’s statement on Friday about the allegations he has made against the prison authorities and bribes taken to provide facilities to VIP patients. In his three-page letter, Dr Ghule claimed inmates were being threatened by prison authorities to cough up money. Economic Wing prisoners are locked in barracks 3 and are asked to pay astronomical amounts, he said.

“Sameer Bhujbal has paid Dr Bhosale Rs 10 lakh already but he is repeatedly putting pressure on me to ask for more money. He even asked me to arrange 10 tickets for the India West Indies World Cup match,” the letter said.

The letter lists the names of two prisoners, who have been facilitated hospital stay under the pretext of medical emergency. NCP MLA Ramesh Kadam, facing charges for embezzlement of Rs 420 crore, according to the letter, had been granted various facilities by allowing visits to St George Hospital repeatedly. At the same time, Shekhar Chandrashekhar, arrested in June 2015 in connection with a Rs 30-crore scam, has been allegedly enjoying a stay at Rajawadi Hospital for the past ten days without any medical emergency.