By DK Sinha
Patna: Jan Adhikar Party (Loktantrik) president Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, who was arrested on Tuesday and sent behind the bars in connection with a 32-year-old case, was on Friday admitted to the ICU of Paras Hospital in Darbhanga after he developed health complications.
Earlier, he was shifted to Darbhanga Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) from Birpur jail in Supaul district where he was lodged after his arrest.
Pappu Yadav had objected to his admission to DMCM, tweeting that “there were deaths all around at the hospital.”
Former MP Ranjeet Ranjan, wife of Pappu Yadav, has threatened on Thursday that she would sit on fast-unto-death if her husband was not released in two days.
Ranjan pleaded with chief minister Nitish Kumar her husband is a critical diabetic patient and was also operated upon recently for gall-bladder, making him vulnerable to infection. Pappu, a former MP, had represented Purnia and Madhepura in the Lok Sabha.
Pappu has been helping the needy and the distraught patients till he was arrested. He had also highlighted how the ambulances purchased by BJP’s Saran MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy with the MPLAD fund were kept on the campus of a voluntary group at Amnour in Saran district.
On Tuesday morning, Patna police had arrested Pappu Yadav for violation of Covid-19 containment protocols during the state-wide lockdown. But he was given bail at Pirbahore police station on the condition that he will make himself available whenever required during the investigation of the case. Patna police, however, handed him over to Madhepura police in the 32-year old case.
On late Tuesday night, Yadav was sent to 14-days in judicial custody by a local Madhepura court, which also cancelled his bail-bond in a case of kidnapping of one Rajkumar Yadav in 1989. Within 12 hours of his arrival in the jail, Pappu Yadav sat on hunger strike demanding clean drinking water and hygienic conditions in the jail’s toilet and washroom. He also tweeted on Wednesday morning that jail authorities were not providing him with proper medical treatment for an old wound in one of his legs.
Yadav had pleaded before the Madhepura court to send him to medical college or Sadar Hospital on medical grounds. He also cited his petition pending before the Patna High Court challenging the non-bailable warrant issued against him in the kidnapping case. However, the court decided to send him to judicial custody.
