Doctor parents of ‘minor surgeon’ arrested

The Tiruchirapalli police on Monday evening arrested Dr K Murugesan and his wife Dr Gandhimathi under various sections of the IPC

The Tiruchirapalli police on Monday evening arrested Dr K Murugesan and his wife Dr Gandhimathi under various sections of the IPC, including 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide); 338 (act that would cause grievous hurt), 336 (endangering life or personal safety of others); 468 (forgery); and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence or giving false information to screen offenders) read with Section 114 and 15 (1) (2) and (3) of the Medical Council Act, 1956.

They were likely to be produced before a District Magistrate, said Tiruchy SP Rajashekaran. A special team has been formed to trace their son Dilheepan Raj who is believed to have come to Chennai.

Earlier in the day, the police detained Murugesan and Gandhimathi for questioning for several “medical irregularities”, including “aiding and abetting the criminal act” of their 15-year-old son Dhileepan, a class X student, of performing a caesarean section recently on a patient at the family-run maternity hospital at Manapparai, about 40 km from Tiruchirapalli.

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It took the police time to arrest the couple formally as they were in a quandary as to what section of the IPC could be applied to proceed against the doctors. Dhileepan is likely to be proceeded against under the Juvenile Delinquent Act.

According to Tiruchy District Collector Ashish Vachchani, a report based on a four-day probe conducted by a three-member panel headed by the Deputy Revenue Officer, was submitted to the police last night. “The Deputy Director, Health Services, who was part of the probe team, filed a criminal complaint against the doctor couple. Now, it is up to the police to decide under what sections to arrest them,” he told The Indian Express.

The Collector will also send a report to the state Government advising that a representation be sent to the Tamil Nadu branch of the Indian Medical Council for “appropriate action” against Dr Murugesan and his wife “for violating medical ethics regulations formulated in 2003”. Action has also been initiated against the Scan Centre of the Mathi Surgical and Maternity Hospital run by the doctor couple in Manapparai for “violations of the pre-natal diagnostic test Act”.

Vachchani said the criminal complaint against the doctors were filed based on the contradictions in the depositions of the doctor couple and the medical records of the hospital; depositions of many of the members of the Indian Medical Association, Manapparai, who watched the video film presented by Dr Murugesan on May 6 “proudly showing his son performing the Caesarian surgery to deliver a baby”; and the audio recordings of the doctor’s interview to a Tamil magazine where “he has also admitted that he has been training his son from the seventh standard”.

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A complaint was also filed against the doctor for getting a consent letter signed from the ‘patient’, where it was stated that a surgeon and an anaesthetist would be conducting the surgery. “But in this case, we know that there was neither an anaesthetist (as Dr Murugesan himself administered anaesthesia) nor a surgeon (as Dhileepan is said to have conducted the surgery),” pointed out Vachchani.