As reported in the Indian Express, Dr. Gadre (61) was stopped by five to six men and was directed to say ‘Jai Shri Ram.’ Initially he said it softly but when they ordered him to chant it loudly, he ran away. Dr. Gadre said, “I must have muttered the words but they again asked me to shout it loudly… ‘Jai Shri Ram’… and that’s when I walked away.”
Dr. Gadre’s close friend and senior journalist, Anant Bagaitkar, to whom Dr. Gadre later narrated the incident, said, “He [Dr. Gadre] was staying at the YMCA near Jantar Mantar as he was due to deliver a lecture organized by Indian Medical Association at Bijnor the next day. When he left for his morning stroll, he was accosted by a gang of five-six youth near the Hanuman Temple in Connaught Place. They surrounded him, asked him what religion he was and finally demanded that he chant ‘Jai Shri Ram.”
While Dr. Gadre was shocked and scared with this untoward incident, something which he has never faced in his entire life, he has not filed a police complaint calling it a trivial incident.
“On May 26, I was taking a morning walk in Delhi at around 6 a.m. near the YMCA. Suddenly, few youths [confronted me] and asked me to say ‘Jai Shri Ram’. I was a little taken aback and said it. They insisted I say it loudly. I just walked away and they let me. I was not physically manhandled…I did not want to make it public nor report it to the police because I thought it to be trivial…I request everyone to treat it as trivial and not draw any conclusion,” said Dr. Gadre.
Dr. Gadre has worked with renowned Dr. Prakash Amte and has been vocal about patient’s rights, universal healthcare and the social regulation of the private medical sector.
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