Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Maharashtra), Oct 27 (PTI) Family members of the woman doctor who allegedly committed suicide in Maharashtra’s Satara district last week demanded on Monday that the government set up a Special Investigation Team to probe the case.
The trial should be held in a fast-track court in Beed, they said at a press conference.
“We have some demands for the chief minister. An SIT should be formed at the earliest, and we will not go to Phaltan (where the woman died by suicide) to record our statements. The case should be tried in a fast-track court in Beed. The allegations that are being made against my sister should be verified by checking the CDR (Call Detail Records),” said a woman relative.
The complaints made by the woman doctor in the past were not heeded, and a fresh inquiry should be held into them, she added.
A male relative of the deceased woman raised questions about the surrender of suspended police sub-inspector Gopal Badane, one of the two arrested accused.
“Police kept searching for him. They formed five teams and sent them in different directions. Then how did the accused surrender a day before the CM’s visit (to Phaltan)?….We think he destroyed all the evidence and then surrendered,” the relative said.
The 28-year-old doctor, hailing from Beed district of central Maharashtra and posted at a government hospital in Satara district, was found hanging in a hotel room in Phaltan town on Thursday night.
In the suicide note written on her palm, she alleged that police sub-inspector Gopal Badane raped her on multiple occasions, while Prashant Bankar, a software engineer, mentally harassed her.
The sub-inspector and the engineer were arrested on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Rajya Sabha MP Rajani Patil said she messaged Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi about the incident, and he sought more details.
Patil was speaking to reporters after meeting the family.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi had on Sunday termed the doctor’s alleged suicide an “institutionalised murder” and claimed her death exposes the “inhuman and insensitive” nature of the BJP-led government Patil also said that after meeting the family she learned that she had faced harassment from the health as well as home departments.
One of woman’s relatives had claimed earlier that she faced pressure from police to change medical reports when accused were brought to the government hospital at Phaltan for medical examination after an arrest.
“The inquiry should take place impartially and an SIT should be formed in this case,” Patil said.
“We only say `Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao. But is this the security the `double engine’ government is providing to the women? Women are not at all safe here,” Patil said.
Holding a press conference in Pune, another Opposition leader, Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Sushma Andhare, asked whether it was a murder.
“Why did the doctor go to that hotel at midnight? What prompted her to go there at 1 am? Was she summoned there or did she go on her own? The doctor’s sister is saying the handwriting on the doctor’s palm is not hers. If it isn’t hers, then whose is it? Did the doctor really die by suicide, or was she murdered?” Andhare asked.
By naming only Badane and Bankar as accused, the larger conspiracy was being hidden, Andhare claimed. PTI AW SPK BNM KRK
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