Gorakhpur Deaths | Fourth accused Sudhir Pandey arrested

Lucknow: A fourth accused, clerk Sudhir pandey, one of the accused in the deaths of over 60 children at the state-run BRD Medical College hospital here due to alleged lack of oxygen, has been arrested by the Uttar Pradesh (UP) police, authorities said on Saturday.

He was arrested on the late night of Friday from Khajanchi Chowk of the city.

Pandey has been accused of withholding the payment of the oxygen vendor with the vested interest of getting a commission and of conniving with the former and now jailed principal Rajeev Mishra.

He has also been accused in a government probe of not sharing the information about the pending payment.

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Three prime accused - Mishra, Poornima Mishra and Kafeel Khan -- were arrested by teams of the Special Task Force (STF) of the UP Police and are currently in judicial custody.

The crime branch and the STF are still carrying out raids to nab the four remaining accused - Satish, Sanjay Kumar Tripathi, Uday Pratap Sharma and Gajanand Jaiswal.

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Over 60 children lost their lives between August 10 and 14 at the Baba Raghav Das Medical College in the city, the home constituency of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. At least 30 of them died within 48 hours due to shortage of oxygen supply.