DEHRADUN: The mother of a seer who had been on a fast unto death demanding government action to save the Ganga, and who had been missing for more than a week, alleged on Thursday that he had been abandoned in critical condition by some people in a forest instead of being transferred to a hospital in Dehradun from Delhi just days before he disappeared.Shakuntala Devi, 62, who had announced a fast-unto-death on Wednesday demanding to know her son’s fate, said on Thursday that seer Gopal Das was taken from AIIMS Delhi in a vehicle instead of an ambulance by five unidentified persons and dumped in a forest in Uttarakhand on the intervening night of December 4.“We are not in a position to comment as to who the five persons were. He had narrated his ordeal to one of his friends, Vikas, on a phone taken from a stranger, while another stranger Virender Tomar had rescued him from the forest and admitted him to Max Hospital in Dehradun. The official statement by AIIMS Delhi says that they had handed over Gopal Das ji to the Uttarakhand administration,” said Shakuntala. Max Hospital referred Das to Doon Hospital. The seer went missing from Doon Hospital on December 6.The family members of the seer claimed that he was taken from AIIMS Rishikesh by the district administration, so the responsibility to bring him back to Dehradun was also on them. “From Matri Sadan (where the seer had been fasting) he was taken forcibly by the district administration on October 17 and thereafter he was being shifted from one hospital to another between Uttarakhand, Chandigarh and Delhi. The state government of Uttarakhand had handed him over to AIIMS Delhi. So the responsibility is on both the government to find out his whereabouts,” added Shakuntala.Meanwhile, the sub-divisional magistrate of Haridwar Manish Kumar Singh told TOI, “We have not brought him back from AIIMS Delhi and have no idea about him.”“The seers demanding implementation of the Ganga Act were getting support from Opposition leaders. We are certain that the Centre is behind this incident. They must have been fearful owing to the elections which were to happen in five states, so they took him away and dumped him in a forest to die when he was in critical condition. The report of Gopal Das ji from AIIMS Delhi indicates that he was not in a condition to be discharged. Yet surprisingly he was,” alleged Nitin Hooda, a cousin of the seer.The family members have expressed surprise that Das was handed over to strangers by AIIMS Delhi officials despite them knowing he had been admitted under the vigilance of the administration.According to Shakuntala, after being dumped in the forest Das had contacted police for help but to no avail. “We have learnt from Vikas that my son told him that he had dialed 100, but police did not take any action.”The family is planning a protest march if the seer’s whereabouts are not traced by the government.

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