A mentally unstable youth kept his family members and about 140 policemen on tenterhooks for 40 hours from Wednesday night.
He locked himself in a room in his house here and fired from his father’s licensed double-barreled gun at anyone trying to bring him out. In the process, he shot at and injured two policemen trying to rescue him.
Thirty-five policemen and five commandos from Uttar Pradesh’s Provincial Armed Constabulary were involved in the rescue operation while 100 police personnel were standing guard around the house to control the crowd that had gathered to witness the drama.
Shamim Ahmed, a Bachelor of Education student in a Ghaziabad college, was determined not to come out and the police had to lob teargas shells into his room and make a hole in the roof to reach him. But none of it worked.
Finally, a tranquilising liquid, which emitted fumes on being poured into the room, knocked him out, much to the relief of his family members and policemen on Friday.
Shamim’s father Shabbir Ahmed, an ayurvedic doctor, said his son was “suffering from a phobia for the past two years. He began to believe that people, including his family members would harm him”.
Dr Devashish Shukla, head of the psychiatry department at Lucknow’s Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital said, “The youth could be suffering from schizophrenia, in which a person gets hallucinations. Such a person feels insecure and believes his close ones are trying to kill him. But a final conclusion can be drawn only when the patient is examined.”
{{/usCountry}}Dr Devashish Shukla, head of the psychiatry department at Lucknow’s Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital said, “The youth could be suffering from schizophrenia, in which a person gets hallucinations. Such a person feels insecure and believes his close ones are trying to kill him. But a final conclusion can be drawn only when the patient is examined.”
{{/usCountry}}Shamim has been admitted at a hospital, where his condition was stated to be stable.