Security guards scrambled to move stretchers out of the way and alarmed patients sat up in their beds as a police vehicle, escorting a nursing officer arrested for allegedly molesting a woman doctor, drove through a waiting area at AIIMS Rishikesh.

A video of the incident, which took place on May 21, went viral on social media on Thursday.

In the video, the police vehicle is seen driving through the waiting area with rows of beds on either side. Security guards rush in and push aside the beds to make way for the police vehicle while perplexed patients and their attendants look on.

"The molestation of the lady doctor had sparked angry protests by the resident doctors... and it was necessary to bring him out safely and take him to the police station," senior superintendent of police, Dehradun, Ajai Singh told PTI.

The police vehicle went to the fourth floor of the hospital using a ramp for emergency passage to ensure safe exit of the accused, he said.

It was done with the permission of the AIIMS administration for the safety of the accused as the situation was tense, he added.

Singh said the accused was brought down in the police vehicle from the fourth to the first floor, where the protesters had gathered, and then taken out through the waiting area.

"If this was not done, anything could have happened, even mob lynching," he said.

The nursing officer, Satish Kumar, allegedly molested the junior resident doctor in an operation theatre of the trauma ward on May 19. The doctor lodged a police complaint on May 21, following which Kumar was arrested, the police said.

He has been booked under sections 354 (assaulting a woman with intention to disrobe her) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), they said.

Kumar submitted a written apology to the hospital administration and was suspended following the incident. However, doctors are demanding his dismissal.