Dr Payal Tadvi suicide: Crime branch opposes discharge pleas of two accused

Dr Bhakti Mehare and Dr Ankita Khandelwal filed the discharge pleas on April 7 before additional sessions judge Deepak Bhagwat

Mumbai In a reply to the discharge pleas by doctors Bhakti Mehare and Ankita Khandelwal, both accused of allegedly driving Dr Payel Tadvi to suicide, the Mumbai police crime branch on Monday said that they used to harass and publicly insult the deceased unnecessarily.

The crime branch said that strong evidence is available against the accused in terms of witness statements, recovered WhatsApp chats etc. (HT Photo)

The crime branch said that strong evidence is available against the accused in terms of witness statements, recovered WhatsApp chats etc.

Dr Bhakti Mehare and Dr Ankita Khandelwal filed the discharge pleas on April 7 before additional sessions judge Deepak Bhagwat. The crime branch on Monday filed a reply.

“Seventeen witness statements from the Topiwala National Medical College attached to BYL Nair Hospital, have been recorded and most of them have said that the arrested accused used to unnecessarily trouble and insult Dr Payal Tadvi in front of others,” said the crime branch.

“Dr Payal Tadvi and her mother Abeda Salim Tadvi had in November and December 2018 complained about the three senior resident doctors who used to harass her, after which she (Dr Tadiv) was transferred to some other department for a short period of time,” said the reply.

“The three resident doctors Dr Hema Ahuja, Dr Ankita Khandelwal and Dr Bhakti Mehare, came together in a common conspiracy despite knowing that Tadvi belonged to Scheduled Tribe community and used to harass her in front of other patients, colleagues and employees over trivial reasons,” it added.

“The three doctors had threatened Tadvi that they would not let her operate or learn anything. The trio had also made several fake complaints against Tadvi to the Dean and the Head of Department and had even insulted Tadvi on the hospital WhatsApp group by calling her a runaway,” the reply further stated.

On May 22, 2019, the day Tadvi committed suicide due to alleged harassment, Khandelwal and Ahuja had gone to her room and destroyed a suicide note that Tadvi left, the reply added.

Meanwhile, the accused third doctor Dr Hema Ahuja has also filed for discharge. The court has now posted the matter to April 28.

The three were accused of abetting the suicide of Dr Payal Tadvi, who was also a student of the postgraduate degree course in gynaecology and obstetrics at the Topiwala National Medical College and BYL Nair Hospital.