Maharashtra woman doctor's suicide: Cop arrested for alleged rape

Pune/Satara: In a major development in the suicide of a woman doctor in Maharashtra’s Satara district, the Phaltan Police on Friday arrested sub-inspector Gopal Badane who was named in the victim’s suicide note. In the suicide note, the female doctor accused Badane of raping her multiple times in the last five months.

PSI Badane landed at the Phaltan Rural Police Station and surrendered, said Satara SP Tushar Doshi. He is facing charges including rape and abetment to suicide.

Earlier in the morning, police also arrested software engineer Prashant Bankar, one of the two men the doctor had named in her suicide note. PTI reported that Bankar, accused of mentally harassing the victim and now facing an abetment of suicide charge, was produced before a Satara district court, which sent him to police custody for four days.

The doctor, hailing from Beed district in the Marathwada region of central Maharashtra and posted at a government hospital in Satara district, was found hanging in a hotel room in Phaltan town on Thursday (October 23) night.

In the suicide note written on her palm, she alleged that police sub-inspector Badane raped her on multiple occasions, while Bankar, a a software engineer, mentally harassed her. According to the police, Bankar is the son of the landlord of the house where the doctor resided. She had allegedly called him over the phone and chatted with him before ending her life, they said.

Sub-inspector Badane was suspended from service after his name came up during the probe.

Meanwhile, the doctor’s mortal remains were cremated at her native place in Beed's Wadwani tehsil on Friday night. Her relatives demand capital punishment for the accused in the case.

She complained multiple times about harassment, but her grievances were not addressed, a relative alleged while talking to a news channel.

She faced MP’s pressure to falsify reports
The victim’s relative claimed the she was pressured to change medical reports at the sub-district hospital where she worked.

"Political people in Phaltan often asked her to change medical reports as she used to be regularly on autopsy duty. She had complained multiple times against the PSI (named in the note), but her complaints were not looked into," the relative stated.

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Ambadas Danve accused former BJP MP Ranjitsingh Naik Nimbalkar of pressurising the woman doctor on one occasion in the past. Nimbalkar denied the allegation.

Talking to reporters, Danve claimed that two personal assistants of Nimbalkar once facilitated a call between him and the woman doctor to pressurise her to declare fit accused (brought to the government hospital for medical examination after arrest) as unfit and vice versa.

Nimbalkar, in his reaction, said the allegation was false and that his name was being dragged into the case deliberately. BJP MLA Suresh Dhas demanded that the MP, who allegedly tried to pressurise the woman doctor, be made an accused in the case. He did not name any leader, though.

As per a purported reply submitted by the woman doctor earlier this year to authorities in Satara district after a subordinate police official complained about her, she faced threats from police officials over her way of working, and also taunts over crime in Beed, her native district.

Education loan yet to be repaid
The woman's two cousins, also doctors, alleged that the hospital administration assigned her post-mortem duties only to harass her. According to her family, she wanted to pursue an MD (Doctor of Medicine) course and was preparing for it.

The loan of ₹3 lakh taken for her MBBS course was yet to be repaid, her uncle told PTI.

"Her father is a farmer; he is not an educated person. I am a teacher and I took her to Beed for schooling....she did not want to stop at MBBS, but wanted to pursue MD in medicine, ENT or non-clinical branches," he said.