Solving Crime: How a Maharashtra doctor’s assault sparked a two-state hunt for ‘patient’

Dr Jaiswal told the police that the man returned to the clinic when she was alone, after seeing her patients. He allegedly attacked her with a hammer on her head, hitting her multiple times, before escaping with her phone, gold chain, ring, cash and her ATM cards, valued at Rs 93,000.

Dr Jaiswal was found by the housekeeping staff in a grievously injured condition, her head bleeding. She was rushed to the hospital and was found to have sustained nine wounds on her head caused by a blunt object. She was only discharged eight days later, with the police failing to find her attacker.

CCTV footage provides a clue

The clinic did not have any CCTV cameras, but the man was captured entering and exiting the premises on a camera in an adjacent building. Based on these images, the police began a search. After inquiries in the area about the man’s whereabouts proved unsuccessful, the police looked at old records of accused with a similar crime record.

It was then that an incident from 2021 from neighbouring Mira Road caught the investigating team’s attention. The accused in that case had attacked a senior citizen and fled with jewellery and cash. The victim in the previous case, too, had been attacked with a hammer.

Based on this modus operandi and the weapon, the police identified the accused as Rashid Khan from the old records. His identity was confirmed with the CCTV image, the police claimed.

When the police began to trace Khan, his call records and other technical evidence led them first to Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, where he had escaped to, and then to West Bengal, from where he was arrested on February 4, 2022 and brought to the city.

The police claimed to have recovered the hammer used in the crime from UP, and also the jewellery sold to a goldsmith, whose statement was recorded.

Sufficient evidence, says court

During the trial before a Thane court, 14 witnesses were examined, including the doctor, a patient who had seen the accused waiting his turn at the clinic, doctors who had examined the victim, and the goldsmith who had bought the jewellery.

Khan, who was represented by a legal aid counsel, had raised issues with the evidence, including the recovery of the weapon a month later, saying that there was nothing to show it was the same hammer used in the crime and said that it could have been planted by the police. The lawyer also questioned the goldsmith’s statement, claiming there was no proof of the jewellery being sold there.

The court, however, found the evidence presented by the prosecution, including the identification done by the victim, sufficient as evidence to show the involvement of the accused.

On October 31, 2025, Khan was found guilty of trespassing and robbery with attempt to cause grievous hurt under sections 452 and 397 of the Indian Penal Code and sections of the Prevention of Violence Against Doctors, Medical Professionals and Medical Institutions Act, 2019, as the victim was a doctor. He was sentenced to seven years in jail.