The injured, including three security guards of the institute, were admitted to the hospital’s emergency ward. Till the evening, three had been discharged after treatment while the security guards — Surinder Kumar, Feroz Ansari and Amit — are still recovering.

Eyewitnesses pointed to a beehive near the police post adjoining the Nehru Hospital from where the bees had spread in the area and attacked passersby.

Kumar narrated the incident to Newsline. “We had queued up for the daily attendance in front of the director’s office around 2.30 pm, when a woman came running towards us from the ramp. She was surrounded by bees and struggling to get rid of them. Some of us were stung. Bhandari was coming out of the Nehru Hospital at the same time and he was attacked too. People tried to save him by covering him with blankets but he was severely hurt,” he said.

Bhandari had come to the PGI to visit an ailing acquaintance on the fifth floor of Block A.

Another eyewitness Amit said: “Bhandari had actually left the area but returned, probably because he had forgotten something. It was on the second trip that he was stung by bees.”

According to the doctors, Bhandari suffered anaphylactic shock — a rare allergy affecting one in 10,000 people caused by a stimulus like insect sting.

“We tried to resuscitate him by giving medicines but his blood pressure and pulse kept dropping. Normally in such cases, the patient recovers in 20-30 minutes but we continued the resuscitation for around 45 minutes,” said a doctor at the PGI emergency ward.

All others admitted in the ward are said to be out of danger.

The PGI spokesperson said necessary steps will be taken soon to remove the thriving beehives.

“It was a very tragic incident. We will try to take the necessary steps immediately,” said the spokesperson.