9 cops suspended after drug case accused escapes from hospital

Nine police personnel have been suspended after a drug case accused escaped from a state-run hospital in Maharashtra’s Pune city, officials said.
Lalit Patil, who was in jail for about a year, was found to have access to a mobile phone while in hospital, a police official said. He was allegedly peddling drugs even when undergoing treatment, and was named in a new case only three days ago. Police have formed 10 teams to nab him, the official added.
Patil, lodged in the Yerwada jail near here, was undergoing treatment at the Sassoon general hospital in the city for the last three months. He escaped while being taken for X-ray imaging.
Five police personnel were suspended for lapses in vigilance, while four others were suspended as the accused, while in the hospital ward, was found to be using a mobile phone, said an official.
On September 30, one Subhash Mandal was held by Pune police’s Anti-Narcotics Cell outside the Sassoon hospital with two kilograms of mephedrone worth Rs 2 crore. He told police that he got the drugs from Patil through Rauf Shaikh, an employee at the hospital’s canteen. Mandal, Shaikh and Patil were then booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act and Indian Penal Code provisions in a case registered at Bundgarden police station.