It is no pleasure to announce that after thorough and careful examination of all the evidence pertaining to the circumstances leading to Dr Mookerjee’s death we have come to the definite conclusion that the Great Lender was medically murdered. We would go further and allege that the communique issued by the Kashmir Government is false and fake. Our private information is that no Hindu doctor waited on Dr. Mookerj in that fateful night. We allege that to cover up this culpable homicide, Abduallah personally called on Dr. Ramnath Parhar and forced him to sign the communique on the dotted line.
We further allege that no oxygen was given to Dr Mookerjee. Our information is that the Nursing Home to which Dr. Mookerjee was admitted had no gas equipment. The gas equipment was available in the Military Hospital near Nishat where Dr Mookerjee was detained. But Dr Mookerjee was removed in his precarious health to the distant Nursing Home without gas equipment, and not to the closer-by Indian Military Hospital which had this and other modern equipment.
These are grave charges and we call upon the Prime Minister to appoint an immediate inquiry commission consisting of Dr. B.C. Roy, R.N.B. Khare and Chief Justice Patanjali Shastri to go into the circumstances of the imprisonment, illness and death of Dr. Mookerjee and establish the truth or otherwise of these and other charges herein-under and elsewhere made.
1. Dr. Mookerjee was arrested on the afternoon of May 11. He was 11. driven to Srinagar. At 10.30 P. M. they halted for dinner at Udhampur. Dr. Mookerjee said he was “very tired” and wanted to sleep. But Abdullah’s police kept driving straight on till 2.30 A.M. Exactly three days after, Dr. Mookerjee had a bad pain in the right leg. Why was Dr. Mookerjee deprived of sleep for four hours? It took five days to heal his leg. leg. Again, after a fortnight he got a pain in his leg. Dr. Mookerji felt that recurring pain was due to the Kashmir cold. Why was he not immediately removed to a warmer climate-say Jammu or better still, Delhi?
2. On the night of 19th and 20th, he felt a pain in the back and 1. high temperature. By sun-rise the pain had become acute. The doctor was informed but he arrived at 11.30 A. M! He diagnosed the disease as dry pleurisy. He prescribed streptomycin. Dr. Mookerjee informed him that his personal physician, Dr. Rose, had found that streptomycin did not suit his system. Dr. Ali Mohammed over-ruled the objection without consulting Dr. Bose who was available on phone. The other medicines came only at 3.30 PM.
Dr. Mookerjee told the superintendent that news of his serious illness should be sent to his relatives. But Abdullah Government neither informed the public nor the relatives nor even GOI.
3. For the whole of the rest of the day and for the whole night no doctor waited on him! Meanwhile at 4. P. M. the pain and temperature rose. At 4:45 AM Dr. Mookerji developed acute pain. He was perspiring and about to faint. His pulse was feeble, his whole-body cold, later in the day he told his legal counsel that he felt he was about to die. The doctor was called at 5.30 AM but he arrived only at 7.30 AM
4. Dr. Ali Mohammed ordered Dr. Mookerjee to be removed to the Nursing Home. Dr. Mookerjee was reluctant. But he was helpless. His co-detenus begged to be taken along with Dr. Mookerjee but Dr. Mohammed would not agree! Dr. Mookerjee requested that at least his personal servant may be allowed to accompany him. Again Dr. Mohammed refused!
5. Dr. Mookerjee was removed not in an ambulance but in a small four-seater taxi. He was sitting very uncomfortable. Expert medical opinion is that the removal of a serious heart case in such an uncomfortable position over a distance of ten miles was “an. unthinkable procedure”. Also, his pulse rate, blood pressure and respiratory rate were not examined and recorded before he was started on his journey to death. In the opinion of Dr. Nalini Ranjan Sen Gupta, “To keep a man so obviously ill with such a fatal illness in charge of people who cannot even diagnose such severe attacks and if diagnosed, handle him so roughly like a quack is a blunder which definitely cost the patient’s life and cannot be condoned or pardoned”.
6. Anti-coagulants and morfin are the two best known remedies for this sort of heart attack viz., coronory thrombosis. But Dr. Mohammed gave neither!
7. Dry pleurisy presupposes heart trouble some days before. In any case it is a serious matter particularly for a patient who had an earlier heart attack. But neither the patient was rushed to better doctors in bigger places nor good doctors rushed to his aid.
8. In his precarious state of health, he was given an intravenous injection. His urine was never examined. Our private information is that Dr. Mohammed left the patient for over three hours on that fatal night in the solitary charge of a single nurse. The doctor left at 9 p. m. soon after the condition deteriorated. The nervous nurse rang up Dr. Mohammed. But he arrived only at 12L30 AM. There was no oxygen to be administered. It is alleged that Dr. Mookerjee actually passed away before 1 AM was Dr. Mohammed under Instructions to leave Dr. Mookerjee to die?
9. All the time he was sinking during the night, none of his co-detenus was brought to be by his side. They were only shown his dead ad body. Till the last he was not released. Abdullah’s police with rifles in hand surrounded him till his death and after. His express telegram to bis family reached Calcutta after sixteen hours by which time he had already expired!
10. In the morning when the body was being flown to Calcutta, other Ministers arrived but Shaikh was conspicuous by his absence. He came late and could reach before the take-off only because the plane took some unexpected time to fly. He looked un concerned and sported a big blooming flower from his button hole.
11. In Delhi Azad spoke the lie that Dr. Mookerjee had caught only a “chill” three days before he died. He told another lie when he said that his friends were allowed to be by his side. Not only were his co-detenus not allowed to be by his side, his brother-in-law in Srinagar was refused interview. His son Anutosh tried for 15 days to get a permit to visit Kashmir but he did not get it to the last!
12. Home Minister Katju was informed of the tragedy immediately. The AIR. and other press correspondents in Srinagar were informed before 5 AM. But AIR omitted the news in its morning bulletin. In the afternoon bulletin it dismissed the news casually in one line towards the fag end. It never again talked of the crime.
13. Shaikh says that Dr. Mookerjee was arrested by him for violating the permit system. Only GOI can affect such an arrest because the permit system is imposed by GOI. Shaikh says that he proposed to transfer Dr. Mookerjee to India after Nehru’s return. Why after Nehru’s return? Why not before his departure? Was there no Government in India to receive Dr. Mookerjee in Nehru’s absence?
We accuse the Kashmir and India Governments of decoying Dr. Mookerjee to Kashmir and treating him so negligently that he died of this neglect. We therefore repeat that a commission of inquiry must be appointed most immediately. We would suggest the immediate taking in of all doctors and nurses who waited on him, in GOI custody. We demand to know whether it was death or murder that end our Lender’s life. Mr. Nehru has been back home for a week now. He has talked shout things from China to Peru but not about Dr. Mookerjee neither a promise of inquiry not even a word of sorrow. To keep silent is to plead guilty. To disregard this universal demand would be rousing the elemental passions of men. We say:inquiry.
(Article first published in Organiser on July 6, 1953.)
