A man in the capital city of Uttar Pradesh, India, has died after the driver of a private ambulance took him off of life support and threw him out of the vehicle so he would have the opportunity to rape his wife.
According to The Times of India, the incident occurred late last month after the woman hired the emergency vehicle to escort her, her brother, and her husband home after he was discharged from a hospital in Lucknow due to financial limitations.
Speaking with police, the woman explained that on the way home, the emergency vehicle driver asked her to sit in the front seat next to him to avoid being stopped by police.
“I was forced to sit in the front seat, and then the driver and his companion started molesting me. I objected, but they did not listen to me,” she said, adding that her husband and brother sensed something was wrong and began trying to intervene from the back of the ambulance.
As a result, the men stopped the ambulance near the Chhawani police station, where they “forcibly removed the oxygen mask from [the woman’s] husband and threw him out” of the car before locking her brother in the front and proceeding to molest her.
In addition to sexually assaulting her, the woman also informed police that the men looted over $120 USD from her purse, jewelry, her identification card, and her husband’s hospital reports.
“Thereafter, my brother dialed 112 and 108. The police recorded our statement and said we should get the patient admitted and then come to the Chhawani police station to get the [First Information Report] lodged,” continued the woman, noting that the 108 ambulance picked her husband up and drove him to a hospital in the Basti district where he was immediately pronounced dead.
The woman has since launched a complaint with the Lucknow Police, who are currently searching for the suspects.
“We have lodged a case regarding the incident on the basis of the complaint registered by the woman. Our teams are trying to arrest the accused,” said Jitendra Kumar Dubey, the Deputy Commissioner of Police in northern Lucknow.
News of the incident was met with outrage and mockery on X, with many noting a high frequency of sexual assault cases emerging from India.
“AHHHH WHY IS INDIA FULL OF COMICALLY EVIL RAPE CASES,” wrote Miles Routledge, a British adventurer more commonly known by his moniker ‘Lord Miles.’
“India is one fucked up country. Woman calls ambulance for his ill husband, she was then raped by the ambulance staff, wrote Kenyan user Vitalis Ngoka. “As her husband tries to prevent the crime, they threw him out of the ambulance, the injuries eventually killed him.”
This disturbing case comes weeks after a female doctor was gang raped and murdered by a group of men at R.G. Kar Medical College in the city of Kolkata last month.
As previously reported by The Publica, 31-year-old doctor-trainee Moumita Debnath’s corpse was found on a blood-soaked mattress after she decided to rest during a 36-hour shift.
Although Debnath’s family was initially told she died by suicide, an autopsy report brought before the Kolkata High Court by the victim’s parents revealed that she died by strangulation and her body showed signs that she had been subjected to a brutal and sustained sexual assault.
The post-mortem report noted that she had a broken neck, her eyes and mouth were bleeding, she suffered pelvic bone and muscle trauma, and her hands, legs, and abdomen were injured. Over 150 mg of semen was also revealed to have been recovered from her body, indicating she had been raped by up to 30 men.
In response to her brutal murder, thousands of people across India, including feminist groups and medical professionals, have been protesting for several weeks, demanding the government implement more safeguarding measures for female doctors.
