BHU Removes Treating Doctor After Padma Shri Lahiri Assault Claim; Probe Team Named

Banaras Hindu University on Sunday–Monday, 6–7 September 2026, removed Dr Arvind Pandey from the treating team of Padma Shri pulmonologist Professor TK Lahiri after an email allegation that the 85-year-old had been slapped and abused in the superspeciality ward of Sir Sunderlal Hospital. Medical Superintendent Dr Punit called the assault claim baseless. The university named a three-member probe of the Chief Proctor, IMS Director Professor SN Sankhwar and the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Kashi.

Professor Lahiri has been admitted at IMS-BHU since 27 January 2026. Photographs purporting to show facial injury circulated with the complaint email. Hospital management said a medical board had examined the clinical picture and cited age-related conditions, including dementia, among the findings used to frame the patients status. That dementia and medical-board line is attributed to the hospital’s account. It is not an independent forensic conclusion published here as fact beyond what the board and MS have stated.

Dr Pandey, in a WhatsApp note referred to in the official handling of the complaint, described a cleaning attempt during which the patient resisted and was restrained, with injuries said to have occurred in that resistance. The university’s public response was to relieve him of further care of Professor Lahiri and to put the allegation before the three-member committee. Removal from the care roster is an administrative step. It is not a finding of guilt.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi and IMS Director Professor SN Sankhwar are the named academic-administrative anchors on the file. State Minister of State Ravindra Jaiswal visited after the Chief Minister directed a ministerial check on Sunday. The visit sits alongside the probe order; it does not replace it.

The desk is treating this as allegation plus official denial plus process. The email alleges assault. The MS says the claim is baseless. The medical board’s age-and-dementia framing is the hospital’s clinical counter-narrative. The Chief Proctor–IMS Director–DCP Kashi team is the inquiry vehicle. None of those layers is collapsed into a single verdict in this report.

Sir Sunderlal’s superspeciality ward remains the location of care. Family and complainant communications that are not part of the university’s released statement are not embroidered here. Facial-injury images that travelled on messaging apps are noted only as having circulated with the complaint, not as authenticated exhibits.

For BHU, the immediate public markers are three: Dr Arvind Pandey off the treating list, a three-member probe notified, and a ministerial visit completed on the Chief Minister’s direction. For the city, the story is how a premier campus hospital answers a Padma Shri patient’s assault allegation without pretending the inquiry is already over.

Until the Chief Proctor’s committee reports, the record stays split between the email allegation and the MS denial. Professor TK Lahiri continues under revised care arrangements at IMS-SSL; Dr Pandey is off that roster; and the probe team of Chief Proctor, IMS Director and DCP Kashi holds the next procedural step.