Jabalpur, Mar 6 (UNI) A patient who doused a counsellor with kerosene and set him ablaze at the local Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Medical College Hospital over a trivial issue this afternoon, has been arrested.

''Kaushal Kishore Jaiswal, who hails from Sidhi district's Sarra village, suspected that he was suffering from AIDS and targeted Sanjay Shrivastav during a counselling session. Jaiswal fled and cordons were set up in the town. One of the police teams apprehended him in the evening while he was hiding on a hill near the college,'' Additional Superintendent of Police Manohar Verma told UNI.

During interrogation, Jaiswal said that he arrived at the hospital on February 24. The counsellor repeatedly told him that he was not AIDS-affected and refused to supply medicine.

''I felt that the doctors wanted to kill me through lack of treatment. Sometime back I committed murder by dousing a person with petrol and also got burnt in the process,'' he added.

Officer Verma said that the accused seemed to have lost his mental balance. The counsellor sustained about 80 per cent burns and is undergoing treatment at the hospital.

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