Disturbed, but Rahul didn’t mean real harm: Doctors

The recent financial crisis and political influence is what may have prompted Rahul Raj’s shooting spree, reports Alifiya Khan.

The recent financial crisis and political influence is what may have prompted Rahul Raj’s shooting spree. The gun totting X-ray technician from Patna who was shot down after he tried to take passengers in a bus hostage at Kurla was mentally disturbed and didn’t appear to mean ‘real harm’ if handled well, say psychiatrists.

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“From what I could gather from his educational and family background and the incident, the boy was definitely mentally disturbed. In this atmosphere of political and financial instability, the boy must feel threatened if jobless and insecure. Unfortunately these kind of political campaigns fuel latent psychotic episodes. It probably wouldn’t have occurred if he wasn’t influenced by these political campaigns,” said Dr Kersi Chavda, psychiatrist at Hinduja Hospital.

Arguing that the move wasn’t pre-mediated, doctors said he might have fired bullets to threaten people.

“He fired two bullets on the ground and didn’t mean real harm. Writing messages, throwing chits, is definitely not the work of a criminal mind. He was just an unfortunate young boy caught in a turmoil,” said Dr Harish Shetty, psychiatrist at Hiranandani hospital.

SK Mohan, the manager of Hotel Imperial in Andheri (E) where Raj had checked in on Sunday morning said: “He was a well mannered person and seems to be from a good family. Raj had said he will be putting up at the hotel for a day or two and had even paid an advance for a day.”