Strangled & stabbed her, then tried to burn body — UP doctor ‘confesses’ to surgeon’s murder

Dr Yogita Gautam, 25, was found dead in Agra Wednesday. She was killed by her alleged partner after ‘she refused to marry him’.

Dr Yogita Gautam (L) and Dr Vivek Tiwari | By special arrangement

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Police Thursday claimed to have cracked the grisly murder of a young Agra doctor, who was found dead Wednesday with stab wounds. According to police in Agra, a doctor named Vivek Tiwari has confessed to killing Dr Yogita Gautam, citing her “refusal to marry him” as his motive.

Gautam, 25, was an MS student and junior doctor at SN Medical College in Agra, who was tending to Covid-19 patients at the hospital. She was reported missing Wednesday, a day after she reportedly cleared her exams and became a qualified surgeon. 

Tiwari, who is employed with a medical facility in Orai, is said to have met Gautam while pursuing MBBS at Tirthankar Medical College, where he was a year senior to her. Tiwari said the two had been in a relationship, which was “wracked by fights over the past year”.

Quoting his “confession”, police said Tiwari drove from Orai to Agra, a distance of over 240 km, Tuesday to meet Gautam but the two soon got into a fight. 

According to Agra police, the two were inside a car when the fight erupted. Tiwari, they said, first strangulated Gautam and then stabbed her in the throat. Police say they have recovered a bloodstained knife from his car.

‘Regular fights’

Police quoted Tiwari as having said during his confession that the two had decided to get married earlier, but problems arose when he kept delaying marriage on account of his sister’s pending nuptials. 

This allegedly made Gautam suspicious that Tiwari was cheating on her. A few months ago, he is believed to have told police, Gautam refused to marry him, setting the stage for “major fights” between the two. 

After he killed her Tuesday, Tiwari allegedly threw her body on the road, covering it with some wood to hide it from passersby. An attempt to burn the body failed, and he allegedly escaped from the scene. 

Local circle officer Chaman Singh Chavda told ThePrint that Tiwari was arrested from Orai Thursday morning. He had been named as a suspect in the complaint filed by Gautam’s brother Wednesday, he added. 

Tiwari defied quarantine

A source at SN Medical College said Gautam was a native of Delhi who had enrolled at the institute in 2017. Like Gautam, Tiwari was also involved in treating corona patients at Orai.

According to local media reports, Tiwari was in charge of a Covid hospital especially set up for trainee personnel diagnosed with the disease at the Police Training School. According to the rules, he was supposed to serve a mandatory 10-day quarantine after being relieved from duty. However, he defied the rule in order to visit Agra.