Child Killed at AIIMS Bhopal: The Medical Negligence Story Gets Darker

Six Days After His Third Birthday, Sarthak Yadav Was Dead

Sarthak Yadav turned three on December 11, 2025. His parents, Siddharth Yadav and Raja Devi Yadav, celebrated the birthday of their only child at their home in Bina tehsil, in Madhya Pradesh's Sagar district. He had been ill — diagnosed with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, a blood cancer that attacks children — and for two months, the family had been making the long journey from their village to AIIMS Bhopal for chemotherapy. They believed they were in the right place. AIIMS Bhopal, an institution of national importance funded by the Government of India, is one of the country's premier medical centres. They trusted it with their son's life.

Six days after his third birthday, Sarthak was dead — not from the cancer he had been fighting, but from a fatal dose of a hazardous chemical that a nurse at AIIMS pushed into his IV line while his father stood at his bedside and begged her three times to stop.

On December 15, 2025, Siddharth admitted his 3-year-old son Sarthak to AIIMS Bhopal after he developed a fever. A bone marrow biopsy was scheduled for the evening of December 16 — a standard procedure in leukaemia cases, in which a sample of bone marrow is extracted and sent to a pathology laboratory for examination. For such procedures, biopsy samples must be immediately preserved in formalin — a solution of formaldehyde used in laboratories to fix tissue and prevent it from decaying before it reaches the pathologist.

Formalin is a hazardous chemical. When it enters the human bloodstream, it destroys blood cells and causes near-instantaneous cardiovascular collapse. It has no place on a patient's bedside unless it is sealed, clearly labelled, and being used for a specific, imminent procedure.

On the evening of December 16, duty nurse Anuka Gujarati brought a tray to Sarthak's bedside in preparation for the biopsy. The tray contained needles, syringes, and a syringe filled with formalin. Then the biopsy was postponed. It was rescheduled for the next morning. The formalin-filled syringe, according to the hospital's own internal inquiry, should have been discarded at that point. Protocol required it. It was not discarded. It was left on the tray, near the child's bed, overnight.

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The morning of December 17 began with routine ward work. Sarthak had been kept on an empty stomach as required ahead of the rescheduled biopsy. Around 6 am, nurses began administering IV fluids. At some point, the DNS bottle got blocked — the IV fluid stopped dripping. When nursing officer Madhubala Sharma arrived for her routine morning visit, Siddharth told her the bottle was not working. She said she would flush the IV line. She looked around for a flushing syringe.

Speaking to The Probe, Siddharth described what happened next. "I told her there was no flusher there," he said. "She then picked up the syringe from the tray. I told her three times not to take it and explained that it was meant for the biopsy. I even told her that the doctor was just outside near the counter and she should cross-check with her." Sharma, he says, was dismissive. "She went ahead anyway, saying, 'Are you the doctor or are we the doctors? We know what we are doing.'" She used the formalin to flush Sarthak's IV line. "In less than a minute," Siddharth told The Probe, his voice breaking, "my child was gone. His last words were — 'Mother, just hold my hands' — and that was it. He was gone forever."

Sarthak was rushed to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit. Doctors administered emergency CPR. He was soon pronounced dead. AIIMS Bhopal's own fact-finding committee, constituted the same day and completing its inquiry within 48 hours, found that the cause of death was directly associated with the formalin injection, that Madhubala Sharma had administered it without verifying the contents of the syringe, and that Anuka Gujarati had failed to discard the formalin-filled syringe after the biopsy was postponed — a direct violation of protocol.

But the account of what happened at AIIMS Bhopal after Sarthak's death — in the ward, in the hours that followed, and in the six months since — is, if anything, more troubling than the medical negligence itself.

Siddharth told The Probe that as his son was being rushed to the PICU, Madhubala Sharma snatched the formalin syringe from his hand. "I immediately called the doctor and she came running," he said. "I told the doctor that the nurse had administered the wrong injection. Later, Madhubala Sharma snatched away the syringe from my hand." When doctors came out and declared Sarthak dead and Siddharth returned to the ward, he found the scene had been cleared. "By the time I came back to the ward, they had removed the tray and everything from sight," he told The Probe. "Madhubala Sharma was also nowhere to be seen. Everything had just disappeared without a trace."

What the Police Told The Probe — And What They Did Not

An FIR in the case of Sarthak's death was registered at Bagsewaniya police station in June 2026 — six months after he died at AIIMS Bhopal. Madhubala Sharma was charged under Section 106(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for causing death by gross negligence. Anuka Gujarati was charged under Section 286 for negligent handling of a dangerous chemical. By the time The Probe spoke to SHO Amit Soni of Bagsewaniya police station, neither accused had been arrested.

"We could not get them yet," Soni told The Probe. He confirmed that AIIMS Bhopal's own inquiry had found the nurses negligent, but said police were now seeking further clarity from the hospital. "In the AIIMS report it was found that they were negligent," he said, "but then the question is what action was taken by AIIMS Bhopal against them. We have sought them a report on this." When The Probe asked whether both nurses had been suspended, Soni's answer revealed a significant discrepancy from what had been reported elsewhere. "One was suspended," he said. "The second is working there only. Madhubala was suspended by them but... why don't you talk to AIIMS Bhopal only."

Multiple media outlets, reporting on the FIR registration, had stated that both nurses were suspended and both were absconding. When The Probe pressed Soni on the absconding claim, he said: "Till the time we don't get them, we will consider them as absconding." He confirmed that as of the date of The Probe's interview, police had not been able to record the statements of either accused nurse.

The six-month gap between the death and the FIR is itself a story of institutional failure — and the account of how it unfolded comes most clearly from the man who lived it. Siddharth says he went to Bagsewaniya police station immediately after his son's death on December 17, 2025. He was turned away. "They even refused to take my complaint," he told The Probe.

"I called the CM helpline and they took our complaint." What followed was months of jurisdictional buck-passing. "The Bagsewaniya police station did not file an FIR in December," he said. "They unnecessarily sent it to Bina police station because they said that you stay in Bina so your case will be registered there." Bina is the tehsil in Sagar district where the Yadav family lives. "It took us nearly two to three months to get the file transferred from Bina to Bagsewaniya again," Siddharth told The Probe, "and then finally in June the FIR was registered."

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What AIIMS Bhopal Told The Probe — And Why It Raises More Questions Than It Answers

When The Probe contacted AIIMS Bhopal for a response to the questions this case raises, we were directed to Medical Superintendent Prof. Vikas Gupta. His account, placed alongside what SHO Soni told The Probe, reveals a set of direct contradictions — and a picture of how AIIMS has handled the aftermath of a medical negligence death that should alarm anyone who has ever trusted a government hospital with a family member's care.

On the most basic question — the status of the two accused nurses — Prof. Gupta confirmed what SHO Soni had indicated and what most media outlets had missed entirely. "Just one," he told The Probe, when asked whether both nurses had been suspended. "The nurse who injected has been suspended." Anuka Gujarati, whose failure to discard the formalin syringe created the conditions for the tragedy, remains employed at AIIMS Bhopal.

"Anuka Gujarati has been served a showcause notice because she did not follow the protocol," Prof. Gupta said. When The Probe asked directly whether she was still working at the hospital, he confirmed it. "Yes, she is still working," he said, adding that she had been moved out of patient-facing duties.

The showcause notice, Prof. Gupta explained, was issued following the fact-finding committee's findings — the same committee that completed its work within 48 hours of Sarthak's death in December 2025. When The Probe asked what action had been taken since, the Medical Superintendent said: "We have given her a showcause notice and we are yet to take further action." Six months had passed at the time of this conversation. The showcause notice had been given. Nothing more had been done. Anuka Gujarati, found negligent by the hospital's own inquiry in a case where a three-year-old child died, continues to draw a salary from the institution.

On the fact-finding process itself, Prof. Gupta told The Probe: "When this happened, the same day we had initiated an inquiry committee. We call it the fact-finding committee — it took two days. It recorded the evidence, it recorded the statements of everyone. The finding was that she — Madhubala Sharma — injected, and the cause of death appears to be temporarily associated with the injection."

The Probe then asked Prof. Gupta about Anuka Gujarati's role. His response was telling. "She kept the formalin there," he said. "As per procedure, formalin was supposed to be discarded, but the procedure was not done at that time." When The Probe pointed out that if Gujarati had not left the formalin syringe on the tray, the injection could not have taken place — making both nurses equally responsible for the child's death — Prof. Gupta pushed back. "No, no, it is not like that," he said. "There are protocols for discarding but there are more stringent protocols for injecting into the body. Until unless I don't confirm what is inside the syringe, I will not inject." The Medical Superintendent of AIIMS Bhopal was, in effect, arguing that the nurse who failed to discard a hazardous chemical is less culpable than the nurse who failed to check what she was injecting — even though both were found negligent by the hospital's own inquiry, and even though one without the other would not have resulted in a child's death.

Sarthak's father, Siddharth, puts it more plainly. "I feel it is totally wrong to not suspend Anuka Gujarati," he told The Probe, "because it is her carelessness in the first place that actually triggered off the whole chain of events. Both are equally responsible."

The contradictions between what the police and AIIMS Bhopal told The Probe run deeper than the question of the nurses' status. SHO Soni told The Probe that police had sought an action taken report from AIIMS Bhopal on the disciplinary action against the nurses. Prof. Gupta denied this. "Action taken report they have not asked," he told The Probe. "Till yesterday — June 14 — I have not received an action taken report request."

On the police's stated inability to record the statements of either nurse, Prof. Gupta was dismissive. "That is their issue," he said. When The Probe pointed out that AIIMS Bhopal has an institutional responsibility to ensure accused employees are available to police for statement recording, he said: "If that is the case, they should have written to us. They have not written to us saying that they have not been able to locate them."

The police say they have sought a report from AIIMS. AIIMS says they have not received one. The police say they cannot locate the nurses. AIIMS says police have not told them that. Six months after the child's death, the hospital and the police are still contesting the most basic facts of the case.

Settlement Calls, Media Failures, and a Father Who Will Not Be Bought

In the months between Sarthak's death and the registration of the FIR, Siddharth says he received multiple calls from various quarters urging him to settle the matter out of court and not pursue a criminal case. One of those calls, he told The Probe, came from the family of one of the accused nurses. "I also got a call from the husband of one of the accused nurses," he said, "who told me: 'Tell us what you want and we are willing to do everything.'" His response was immediate. "I just told them that you will not be able to put a price on my son's life," he said. "I don't want money. I will move court. Let the honourable court give its verdict."

The Probe has noted this claim carefully. The accused nurse whose family is alleged to have made this approach could not be contacted for comment or rebuttal at the time of publication, and The Probe is therefore not identifying which nurse's family is alleged to have called. The allegation, if established, would raise serious questions about attempts to influence the outcome of a criminal case. The Probe has not been able to independently verify the call beyond the father's account.

The registration of the FIR in June 2026 brought the medical negligence case to wider public attention for the first time. The coverage that followed, however, got two basic facts wrong: many outlets incorrectly reported that both nurses had been suspended, and that both were absconding. The Probe's reporting — involving direct interviews with the hospital's Medical Superintendent, the investigating police officer, and the victim's father — establishes that one accused nurse remains employed at the hospital, that she has received only a showcause notice in six months with no further action, and that no recorded statement has been obtained from either accused. The failure of early media coverage to go beyond the FIR document and ask basic questions — of both the police and the hospital — gave AIIMS Bhopal's handling of this case a pass it did not deserve.

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AIIMS Bhopal Cannot Investigate Itself and Call It Accountability

What this case lays bare is the fundamental inadequacy of allowing a premier government hospital to investigate its own medical negligence through an internal fact-finding committee, issue a showcause notice to one accused employee, suspend the other, and consider its obligations discharged. AIIMS Bhopal is not a small private clinic operating outside public scrutiny. It is an institution of national importance, funded by the taxpayers of India, where families from across Madhya Pradesh and beyond bring their most critically ill family members for treatment. The police investigation, meanwhile, has produced an FIR but no arrests, no recorded statements, and a contradictory picture of what communication has or has not taken place between the investigating station and the hospital. 

'No Other Child Should Face What My Son Faced'

Siddharth Yadav is a farmer from a village in Sagar district. He has no legal training and no institutional connections. He brought his only child to AIIMS for chemotherapy because he believed it was the best chance his son had. He watched a nurse push a hazardous chemical into his son's IV line while he pleaded with her to stop. He watched evidence disappear from the ward. He was turned away from a police station. He spent months navigating a jurisdictional dispute he played no part in creating. He has received settlement calls that he has refused.

He is now preparing to fight a criminal case through the courts — not for money, but because he believes it is the only way his son's death will mean anything. "I just want my child to get justice," he told The Probe. "There are other children also in AIIMS Bhopal who are getting treatment. No other child should face what my son faced. We want justice."

Sarthak would have turned four in December 2026. He will not.