Fellow patients had turned into eyes and ears of Vishwanath

The Nimhans campus had turned into a virtual fortress on Monday, a day after a mentally ill person went on a shooting spree there.  

Tight security was in place around the pavilion and closed wards that house the jail ward. Additional policemen were deployed at the spot to ensure that no untoward incident took place. The blood-stained floor of the ward and bullet-ridden walls bore testimony to the incident.

Bhagyamma, his mother, was given a chance to convince Vishwanath to drop the weapon, but she did not make an attempt. This is because she was sure that her son would not listen.

According to an eyewitness, when Vishwanath opened fire inside the closed ward, the police brought Bhagyamma to the spot.

“She did not even want to make an attempt. Considering the way he had behaved earlier, his mother knew that she could not make him drop the weapon,” said a guard who was on duty when the incident took place.

A senior police official said that Vishwanath was able to drag the fight for hours because of the inputs provided to him by other patients about the positions taken by the police.

“He had befriended a few patients in the neighbouring wards. When the Garuda force reached the spot and the police cordoned off the area, the other mentally ill patients who peeped out of the windows of their wards were tipping him on where the commandos were stationed,” the official said.

According to sources in the hospital, Vishwanath was among patients who were highly aggressive. Vishwanath was slated to be discharged on Friday. However, as fate would have it, he died on Sunday.

On Monday evening, his body was shifted from Nimhans to the mortuary at Victoria Hospital where the post-mortem would be conducted on Tuesday. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Rajendra Kumar recorded a statement at the hospital about the incident.

‘Ill since childhood’
According to one of his maternal uncles, Vishwanath was mentally ill since his childhood. His younger brother too suffers from a mental illness. “They lost their father at a very young age. His father worked in the postal department and the job was given to his mother later,” he said.