3 months on, no arrests in Bhandara hospital fire case

NAGPUR: Exactly three months have elapsed since 10 babies died in the blaze at the Bhandara district general hospital in the wee hours of January 9 but till date no arrests have been made in the case.
Though some administrative actions like transfers, terminations and suspensions were taken, prolonged hearing of anticipatory bail pleas of two nurses have delayed any action in the case of criminal negligence.
After more than half a dozen adjournments, the Bhandara sessions court has slated the next hearing in the anticipatory bail pleas on April 15. The case would be heard before the principal district and session judge.
Offence was registered at Bhandara police station against the two nurses, Smita Ambilduke and Shubhangi Sathawane, for culpable homicide and not amounting to murder after a delay of around 40 days. Prior to this, three nurses had approached the sessions court for confirmation of their anticipatory bail pleas.
Apart from Ambilduke and Sathawane, a senior nurse Jyoti Balsagre (Choudhury) too had filed an anticipatory bail plea though she was not made an accused in the FIR. According to sources, the court had granted bail. Police claimed that they were not given opportunity to challenge Balsagre’s plea.
According to a senior police source, the court was submitted various reports, including that of the administrative committee that conducted investigation into the incident. The CCTV footage was also presented before the court in which Sathawane and Ambilduke were not found present at their respective place of duties.
The cyber data was also presented before the court in which it was underlined that the two nurses were on social media when the fire was spreading in the neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU). The time lapse of around 20-21 minutes after the fire started and spread inside the NICU too was established before the court.