Tags:
Journalism of Courage
AHMEDABAD, NOV 30: On November 15, Chaitali Gandhi’s neck was slashed by a man she had refused to marry. Her food pipe was cut, she can’t speak or eat, and is surviving on a liquid diet. Last Monday, her mother Varsha landed in the same hospital with a fractured leg after an incident that she believes was an attempt to kill her for pursuing the case of her daughter.
Shocking as the case might be, it took 11 days for the local police to arrest Chaitali’s assailant Tushar Patel. The Civil Hospital where Chaitali was admitted also showed undue haste in releasing her, insisting she was fit though she couldn’t swallow anything and was running high fever. The doctors have now said Chaitali will require medical care for three months because her food pipe has been cut. Varsha alleges that the behaviour of the police and hospital show that Patel’s politically influential relatives are trying to save him (one of his close relatives is a local BJP leader). “They are people with clout. Otherwise, why should the police and the doctors act like this?” she asks.
The police’s reason for not arresting Patel for 11 days was that he was in a hospital, though Chaitali’s family says he injured himself to get there. But the police did not entertain a complaint even when Varsha herself was knocked down by two scooterists, leaving her with a broken leg.
It took intervention by senior officers before Tushar was arrested. Though the investigating officer was later transferred, no action has been taken against anyone else. As for Chaitali’s discharge from Civil Hospital within three days, Medical Superintendent Anil Chaddha says he will have to check up on why this was done.
Chaitali was once engaged to Tushar, who belongs to Ghatlodia, but it was cancelled after the family came across some unsavoury information about him. An enraged Tushar is said to have followed Chaitali to her ninth-floor flat on November 15, and slashed her neck with a knife. “If she won’t marry me, she won’t marry anyone else,” Chaitali’s neighbours heard him shout.
A profusely bleeding Chaitali was rushed to Ushadeep Hospital in Naranpura area, which referred her to Civil Hospital. Tushar escaped, and later got himself admitted in a private hospital in Naranpura area with injuries which were allegedly self-inflicted.
The same evening, while Varsha was returning home after visiting her daughter, two youths came on a scooter from the wrong side and knocked her down, breaking her leg. “They tried to kill me. In the morning, they had followed me to hospital, but I did not read anything into it,” she says. Later, when a relative went to lodge a complaint with the Satellite Police Station, the police refused to accept it. “My relative told them I have an injured leg and I cannot personally come to the police station, but they did not listen,” says Varsha.
To compound the family’s problems, on November 17, Civil Hospital doctors discharged Chaitali, saying she was fine. Her family had to rush the girl, in pain and running high fever, to a private hospital.
But in between rounds of hospital, Varsha also had to visit senior police officers to ensure that Chaitali got justice. After she met Additional Police Commissioner Shivanand Jha, the Satellite Police arrested Tushar. “He was admitted in a hospital with an injury on his wrist,” Jha says, explaining the delay. On Monday, a magistrate sent Tushar to Sabarmati Jail.
Jha has since directed Senior Inspector F.A. Gohil to take over investigation of the case from Sub-Inspector A.J. Patel. “We have asked Gohil to look into the matter seriously,” Jha said.
