Delhi: In an encounter, two Delhi police officers, while nabbing the suspects shot him with five bullets in a counter-firing. When the burglar bled severely, constable Ashok Kumar took him to the hospital and donated blood to save him.
He often donates blood to old people and road accident victims but has never had to do it for a suspect he shot at, a report of HT stated.
“Shooting at the criminal was my duty. I am performing my humanitarian duty now,” he said while donating the blood at Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Hospital.
Residents of Ahinsa Vihar Apartment in Rohini Sector 9 spotted two men carrying backpacks trying to scale a boundary wall of the housing block around 4 am. They called the police immediately and two policemen on bike patrol and another in a car were alerted.
The cops reached the spot and tried to corner the two suspects – 24-year-old Nitin and Salman, with their faces covered, after coming face to face the burglars shot at the policemen.
“A bullet whizzed past my left ear and I too pulled the trigger in self-defense. My colleague, ASI Ramashray, too began firing,” constable Ashok said.
Ashok and Ramashray fired nine rounds with their service revolvers, and five of them hit Nitin — in one of his legs, both arms and lower back. The one that caught his back did the maximum damage, and he slumped to the ground. His associate Salman managed to run away.
Nitin was soon taken to Ambedkar hospital where the bullets were removed in a long surgery. “Doctors informed he would survive but required three or four units of blood,” said SS Rathee, the station house officer of Prashant Vihar police station.
Rathee volunteered to donate blood — a unit measures approximately 450ml — and requested his colleagues to join him.
Head constable Rajesh agreed immediately, as did constable Ashok. Doctors said Nitin, a native of Kasganj district in Uttar Pradesh, is out of danger.
A similar story took place in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh on March 18 when a doctor-turned-IPS officer, Abhishek Pallav, shot at a Maoist in a seven-hour shootout and treated the wounded man.
“Though a fugitive, he is an Indian citizen. He deserved treatment,” additional superintendent of police Pallav said.