The episode looks like a scene straight from a Hindi film. Police from the states of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra joined forces with Indian Railways to transport anxiety medicines from Lucknow to Bombay for ailing film writer Ankur Verma. The writer, who stays in Bombay, had tweeted to the Uttar Pradesh police’s emergency helpline on 10th May that he was in urgent need of medicines from Lucknow for an anxiety disorder. He added that the medicines were neither available in pharmacy stores in Bombay nor online. Within four days of the tweet, his medicines reached his doorstep, thanks to some quick coordination among different agencies.
Ankur Verma, who lives in Bombay at Andheri, said, he had been consulting a neurologist in Lucknow and visited the doctor twice or thrice a year. The medicines were couriered from Lucknow by his relatives. However, courier companies stopped delivering stuff due to the lockdown, because of which Ankur ran out of medicines. He hunted desperately for the medicines in Bombay as well as online but when he drew a blank everywhere, he dialled some helplines too. When they were unable to help, he panicked because anxiety disorders can give one suicidal thoughts.
A radio jockey saw Ankur’s post on social media and alerted the U.P. police’s helpline. By then, the U.P. police’s helpline operators had also seen Verma’s post. A police officer from the helpline’s media cell spoke to Ankur over the telephone and found that something was amiss. Verma told the cop that his mother, who lived in Unnao district of U.P., was suffering from the same disorder and needed medicines too. Within 24 hours, the U.P. police purchased the medicines from Lucknow and got them delivered to Unnao. As for Verma’s medicines, they had already been purchased by his uncle. When the police officer from the media cell realised that it would be better to have the medicine sent to Bombay from Delhi, a cop fetched the medicines from Verma’s uncle, took them to Delhi, and handed them over to a constable who was to travel to Bombay by train. Two persons from the Bombay police picked up the medicines when the train reached Bombay. The medicines were then delivered by the cops right at Ankur’s home on 14th May. The film writer tweeted his appreciation for all the agencies who had helped.