Satara doctor’s suicide: Munde, Danve seek independent probe
NCP leader Dhananjay Munde and Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Ambadas Danve have demanded an independent probe into the alleged suicide of a woman doctor in Satara, who accused a police officer of rape and another man of harassment in her palm-written note
Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: NCP leader Dhananjay Munde and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Ambadas Danve on Friday separately demanded independent investigation into the alleged suicide of a 28-year-old woman doctor in Maharashtra‘s Satara district.
The woman, hailing from Beed district and posted at a government hospital in Phaltan, was found hanging in a hotel room on Thursday night. In the suicide note written on her palm, she alleged that Sub-Inspector Gopal Badane raped her on multiple occasions, while Prashant Bankar, a software engineer, mentally harassed her.
A case of abetment of suicide has been registered against both of them.
In a post on X, Munde, a former state minister, said if the woman’s superiors had ignored her complaints — as alleged — because she had a particular surname or she belonged to Beed district, it was a serious matter.
“The entire incident should be probed through an SIT and the trial should be conducted in a fast-track court,” said the NCP leader from Beed, adding that he would be writing a letter to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to put forth these demands.
Danve, a former leader of opposition in the legislative council, also evoked the woman’s Marathwada origins. “The suicide of this daughter of Marathwada who rose in life by struggling since her birth shows that the protectors have turned predators,” he said, adding that an independent inquiry committee of officials from outside Satara district should be appointed.
Meanwhile, as per a purported reply submitted by the woman doctor to police authorities in Satara district after a subordinate police official complained about her, she faced threats from police officials over her way of working, and taunts over the crime in her home district of Beed.
A relative of the doctor has claimed she often faced pressure from police to change post-mortem reports and also to modify medical test reports of arrested persons brought to the hospital.
Nitin Andhale, an activist, posted the woman doctor’s purported statement given to an inquiry committee.
Accordingly, an MP once accused her, over phone, of not giving a fitness certificate to an arrested person (which would have enabled police to seek his custody) because she belonged to Beed.
Police could have asked other doctors to examine the person but this was not done, she claimed.
She also purportedly mentioned the case of another woman who had a headache due to high blood pressure, and alleged that police pressurised her to give a fitness certificate and later took the patient away without further treatment.
PSI Badane once threatened her in the hospital, the statement alleged.
Despite her complaint to the deputy Superintendent of Police in June this year, no action was taken, it said.
