Doctor Venugopal, who operated on Indira Gandhi, recalled the scene of bullets in the book

Dr. P Venugopal Book: On the morning of October 31, 1984, the new director was about to take charge at Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) that no one had imagined even in their wildest dreams what happened suddenly. Shortly after, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi riddled with bullets was brought there.

There was such an atmosphere of desperation and chaos in the hospital that it was difficult to describe in words. Dr. P. Venugopal, who operated on Mrs. Gandhi to remove bullets from her body, has not forgotten that dreadful day even today.

The veteran cardiologist, in his memoir ‘Heartfelt’, has given a detailed description of the four hours when the doctors, surgeons and nursing staff of AIIMS worked tirelessly to save Gandhi.

Venugopal was the head of the cardiac surgery department of AIIMS at that time and the achievement of conducting the first heart transplant in India in August 1994 is also in his name. Last week the book of former AIIMS director was released.

What is written about Indira Gandhi in the book?

He writes in the book, “Bullets falling from her blood-soaked sari to the floor, the desperate attempt to transfuse ‘O-negative’ blood and political discussions in the hospital corridors on the swearing-in of the next prime minister… 39 years later.” Even today I remember everything clearly.

Dr. Venugopal has written, “I was moved to see that thin body on the bed; Her stomach was bleeding and she was completely drenched in her own blood. The face had turned pale, as if all the blood had gone out of the body…. The blood was flowing fast, a pool of blood formed around them.

Indira Gandhi’s security guards fired 33 bullets

Former PM Indira Gandhi was murdered by her own two security guards in the lawn of her residence. The assailants fired 33 bullets at him, of which 30 hit him, 23 passed through his body while seven went inside.

Venugopal (81), describing the situation at the scene, wrote, “I saw that they (doctors) were trying to transfuse O-negative blood to Mrs. Gandhi. The blood of this group is not easily available, but I could see that this effort was futile because along with the blood transfusion, blood was oozing out from his bullet-riddled body at the same rate.” He said that there was such an atmosphere in the hospital that no one was able to understand anything.

He says, “AIIMS employees gathered in large numbers. I Dr. H.D. Tandon, who was relinquishing his charge as Director on the same day, and Dr. Sneh Bhargava, who was taking over. It seemed that they do not understand what to do if they do. Clearly, the uncertainty of who the director was that day was preventing them from making a decision or taking action. Both were silent, they looked at me, as if asking what to do?

Venugopal says that as the head of the cardiac surgery department, he looked at me and had to take a quick decision. He said, “…I ordered her to be taken to the OT (Operation Theatre) so that we could stop the bleeding… Everything had to be done so quickly that I did not even wait for the consent form to be signed and just moved on. Went.”

… but could not save

His plan was: “First of all, with the help of a bypass machine, the blood flowing out of Mrs. Gandhi’s body should be stopped and the descending aorta should be closed so that the blood does not flow to the stomach, which was riddled with bullets.”

He fought for four hours. Venugopal remembers that he had to change his OT scrubs thrice because the scrubs were stained with blood. At around two in the afternoon, they tried to remove the Prime Minister from the bypass machine, but could not save him.

He recalled, “Deep down inside I felt very dejected when I came out of the OT to break the news to the people who had brought him…Rajiv Gandhi, who was visiting the eastern part of the country , were returning and almost everyone was of the opinion that they should wait for their arrival.

‘…then Indira Gandhi could have survived’

Venugopal, who has performed over 50,000 heart surgeries in the country, maintains that the former prime minister would have survived despite the initial bullets if he had been “covered” or dragged to a cover. Would have survived.”

He said, “It was learned that she fell down as soon as the first bullet hit and the people accompanying her ran back leaving her alone on the ground. This encouraged the killer and he fired several rounds of bullets from his machine gun at very close range.

At that point, the nurse’s room became ‘the center of debate, discussion and critical conversation’ for the next several hours. “The main issue of these discussions was whether the President (Gyani Zail Singh) would be ready to swear in Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister.”

His book “Heartfelt: A Cardiac Surgeon’s Pioneering Journey” has been published by HarperCollins India. The book is co-authored by Venugopal with his wife Priya Sarkar.

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