Doctor, police suspect high blood pressure led to bleeding in brain.By Our Southern India Correspondent
HYDERABAD, India, January 24, 2017 (Morning Star News) – A doctor who treated a Christian who suffered a brain hemorrhage here after Hindu extremists badgered him and took him to a police station on Saturday (Jan. 21) told Morning Star News that hypertension may have caused the bleeding.
K.A. Swamy, 47, fell into a coma hours after the Hindu extremists shouted and threatened him with highly offensive language for distributing Bibles and took him to police, where he spent the day in custody. He remained in a coma at this writing.
Dr. Shaik Sardar of the Critical Care Department at Kamineni Hospitals said there was no evidence of external injury to Swamy, a Charted Accountant who was distributing Bibles on Tank Bund Road in Hyderabad, capital of Telangana state.
“Most likely, it looks like a case of hypertension, because the bleeding is localized within the vessel distribution,” Sardar said. “If it is some assault, the bleed will be diffused, you will have external injuries, but there are no such external injuries, and so the cause could be hypertension leading to that bleed.”
Police told Swamy that members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), an umbrella group for Hindu extremist organizations, had brought him to the police station, Swamy’s wife told Morning Star News.
“Swamy explained to them that it, the Bible, is for free and that he is not forcing anyone,” his wife, Kusuma Sujatha, told Morning Star News. “They had shown Swamy so many photos of him in different shirt colors that they must have been following and observing his movement.”
Intercepting him Saturday morning, the extremists threatened him by showing him photos they had taken of him, according to a video of the bullying that Morning Star News has translated.
“We have photographs of you distributing Bibles in different locations,” one of three Hindu extremists who spoke with him said. “You were doing this on Necklace Road also. This fellow is doing it for a long time.”
After shouting at Swamy for “doing religious promotion” and “catching hold of people who are coming for morning walk here,” they ridiculed him by forcing him to put a Bible on his head, the video shows.
“Keep it on the head. Keep it on the head,” another of the Hindu extremists said. “You distributed. How dare you do it.”
A fourth Hindu extremist recording the video then told him that even if he denied it, “we’ve got cameras,” and one of the other members reprimanded him: “Not just here, you must not promote Christianity anywhere in India.”
Before they forced him into their vehicle, the Hindu extremist said again, “You must not do this anywhere in this country. You must not do this . . . Pick up your bags. You carry your own sins – your bag. All your family and children will go in fire. I tell you, 100 percent it’s going to happen.”
Police Statement
Sub-Inspector Narsimha Naik of the Mahankali police station told Morning Star News that he explained to those who brought Swamy in that there was nothing wrong with distributing Bibles if there was no force involved. He said police did not file a First Information Report.
“They kind of dealt roughly with him before bringing him to us,” Naik said, “asking provocative questions – ‘How dare you distribute Bibles?’ Why are you distributing them on roads? Do it in your church.’ This might have raised up his blood pressure rate.”
Swamy’s wife said a fellow Christian came to pick him up after his release at the end of the day.
“That’s when he complained of dizziness and collapsed in the car they were driving,” she said. “I am unable to understand anything. Physically he is a very fit man, no past record any kind of illness. This hemorrhage all of a sudden is shocking. Please keep praying for him.”
A neurosurgeon has advised against operating now given the amount of bleeding, Sardar of the hospital’s Critical Care Department said.
“The patient is being ventilated, and we will assess daily his breathing pattern, oxygen levels, heart rate, blood pressure, everything,” he said. “Because of bleeding, his consciousness levels are very low. His consciousness levels also should get better, and if it is possible within couple of days or three days, we will try to operate on him.”
The tone set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s National Democratic Alliance government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has emboldened Hindu extremists in several parts of India to attack non-Hindus since Narendra took power in May 2014, Christian leaders say. India ranked 15th on Christian support organization Open Doors’ 2017 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian because of persecution.