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Journalism of Courage
Fellow doctors and hospital staff at Phaltan sub-district hospital say that the deceased doctor, who died by suicide on Thursday after alleging rape and mental torture by police sub-inspector Gopal Badane and sexual and mentally harassment by one Prashant Bankar, was a helpful colleague and a competent medical professional who took good care of her patients.
A doctor at the hospital told The Indian Express on Saturday on condition of anonymity, “She was a very helpful person and a very good doctor. I have worked with her for some time now and there has never been any issue with her work. Whenever I asked her to stand in for me for a couple of hours, she never said no.” Another doctor posted at the hospital concurred and said she was a competent doctor with no reported complaints. The doctors said they had submitted a letter in support of the late doctor to an investigating team that had come to the hospital.
In June this year, the deceased doctor had complained against officers of the Phaltan rural police station for allegedly pressuring her to provide “medically fit” certificates to arrested persons. She named three officers in her complaint, including Badane. Later, the police filed a complaint against the doctor alleging that she was being obstructive by not providing the certificates with no good reason.
A doctor from a primary health centre in the district who had come with the delegation said, “She was a strong and competent doctor. She had been here for 1-2 years. If someone is new there can be a complaint against them. But if someone has been working for a couple of years, how can there suddenly be such a complaint of non-cooperation against them? This hospital is the secondary care centre and we work at the primary centre. Even though I didn’t know her personally, I knew of her. And she has taken good care of the patients that we referred to her,” he added.
Hospital staff said the doctor never turned away any patients and took good care of them. “She was very dedicated to her work. Her shifts used to be the longest and there were never any complaints with her work. Her behaviour with hospital technical staff was also good. She used to entertain all patients and did not care even if they were drunk or anything of that sort,” said a staff member. “We knew that there had been some clashes between her and the police with regard to fitness certificates for arrested accused, and this issue was only with the rural police and not the city police, but we had no clue about the personal problems that were there,” the staff member added.
Docs demand SIT probe into death
A delegation of the Maharashtra State Gazetted Medical Officers Group-A Association (MGMOA) also arrived at the hospital on Saturday and met the in-charge doctor, demanding an SIT to inquire into the death. Doctor in-charge at the Phaltan sub-district hospital Anshuman Dhumal refused to speak to The Indian Express. Dr Manoj Khomane, working president of MGMOA, said, “We came here to take stock of the situation. We have come to the conclusion that she had extremely good relations with her fellow doctors, office staff, and patients. She had complained against the police officers in June and she was being harassed after that. Sometime later, the police also filed a complaint against her and an investigation was conducted but the unfortunate thing is that no action was taken on the first complaint.”
“We demand that an SIT be formed to investigate her death. It is not acceptable to anyone that the same police station carries out the investigation against whose officers the allegations have been made. The police officer involved should be arrested immediately,” he added.
Phaltan Superintendent of Police Tushar Doshi, however, told The Indian Express that inquiries were conducted into both the complaints. “Her complaint against the police and Phaltan police complaint against her are about administrative work and nothing to do with her subsequent tragic suicide. Her suicide is completely connected to her alleged sexual assault, rape, and mental torture by the PSI and the other private citizen. The earlier complaint belonged to an administrative domain and it was not about any major issue like changing of evidence, but about issuance of fit and unfit certificates to arrested persons.
“In her complaint there was nothing related to mental harassment. She had said that police were pressuring her to give a fitness certificate whereas we had a complaint that she is unnecessarily giving unfit certificates. In both the cases, inquiry was conducted by the dean surgeon as well as us and it was decided to amicably resolve the issue,” Doshi said.
We have chats and call records: Bankar’s sister
Bankar was arrested on Saturday morning and remanded to four days police custody by the local court. The deceased doctor was a tenant at Bankar’s house. The Bankar family was in disarray but claimed their ward was innocent. “He did not even stay much at home, he works in Pune. The doctor had ‘proposed’ to him earlier and he had rejected her. After that she used to keep calling him and mentally torture him. We have chats and call records to prove everything, we will show them to the police,” said his sister Swati Bankar.
