Payal Tadvi suicide case: Prosecution seeks to name former HOD as accused

The prosecution sought to frame charges against Dr Ching for allegedly encouraging and provoking three senior students to harass Tadvi, thereby facilitating the suicide

MUMBAI: The prosecution in the Dr Payal Tadvi suicide case has recently moved a plea to make Dr Ching Ling Chiang, the former head of the gynaecology and obstetrics department at the Topiwala National Medical College & BYL Nair Charitable Hospital, an accused in the case. The prosecution sought to frame charges against Dr Ching for allegedly encouraging and provoking three senior students to harass Tadvi, thereby facilitating the suicide.

Dr. Payal Tadvi, a 26-year-old PG medical student at BYL Nair Hospital, committed suicide in her hostel room.

Special public prosecutor Pradip D Gharat moved the plea before the special SC/ST court on November 13, stating that the charge sheet had made out a strong case against Dr Ching, who should be summoned along with the other accused for framing the charges. The framing of charges marks the beginning of a trial.

On May 22, 2019, Tadvi, a postgraduate medical student belonging to a tribal community, died by suicide after being allegedly subjected to severe harassment and casteist abuse from three senior, upper-caste students at the medical college. The three seniors–Hema Ahuja, Bhakti Meher and Ankita Khandelwal– were named as accused by the Mumbai police and arrested in May 2019 under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the Maharashtra Prohibition of Ragging Act. They are currently out on bail.

Bringing out the contents of the FIR, the special public prosecutor submitted that Tadvi’s mother, Abeda Salim Tadvi, along with her niece, Asha Tadvi, had met Dr Ching to inform her about the harassment Payal faced from the three seniors. However, Dr Ching allegedly refused to listen to them and told them that incidents like this were common.

Payal Tadvi then informed her mother that the department head had called her and the three seniors to discuss the incident and took the latter’s side, asking her to bear all the harassment. The prosecution submitted that Dr Ching’s action, therefore, had encouraged and provoked the seniors, which facilitated the offence instead of preventing it.

The prosecutor claimed that the statement of another witness, Tadvi’s colleague, also corroborated the allegations levelled against Dr Ching. The colleague stated that on May 13, Tadvi’s mother and husband had met Dr Ching and the three seniors, and the department head simply gave a warning to the three accused. She also refused to change Tadvi’s college unit, as requested by her mother and husband.

The prosecution’s plea said that five main witnesses in the case had corroborated the role played by the accused in the abetment of Tadvi’s suicide. “As a result of her acts of omission to take the proper steps in spite of the knowledge of torture and harassment, the said ragging, ill-treatment, harassment and torture of the deceased by the charge-sheeted accused was increased to such a level that the deceased committed suicide,” the plea said.

Gharat said the prosecution moved the plea since Dr Ching’s name had come up in various investigative reports where she was held responsible for facilitating the ragging. The prosecution also submitted the report filed by the college’s ragging prevention committee, which recommended appropriate administrative action against Dr Ching and held her responsible for the actions that led to Tadvi’s suicide.

“It is, therefore, necessary that Dr Ching Ling Chung Chiang… should be joined as an accused since, from the overall consideration of the seriousness of the offence, facts of the case and the laws on the point, the case does stand made out against her…the charge sheet shows that she is also responsible for the suicide…”, said the prosecution’s plea, filed before special judge SM Tapkire. Dr Ching refused to comment on the development.

In June this year, the special court rejected the discharge pleas filed by the three accused, observing that there was prima facie evidence to establish their specific roles in the case.

The Mumbai crime branch, in its charge sheet, had submitted details of the constant harassment Tadvi faced over her caste by the three seniors. The charge sheet included statements from witnesses and a three-page suicide note, in which Tadvi had accused the three seniors of using casteist slurs against her.