Payal Tadvi suicide: Accused plead against imprisonment
MUMBAI: The three accused in Dr Payal Tadvi suicide case broke down in Mumbai court yesterday when the court adjourned their bail applications for hearing to June 17.
The three accused Dr Hema Ahuja, Dr Bhakti Meher and Dr Ankita Khandelwal had filed bail applications earlier this month after they were sent to judicial custody by the local court.
The three girls said that they should not be sent back to jail and that this was injustice against them. They claimed that they had done nothing wrong that they should be imprisoned. The accused had been brought by the jail authorities as their custody was over. The court extended their judicial custody by 14 days, till June 24.
The three women doctors were arrested for allegedly abetting the suicide Tadvi and passing racist slurs against her. The death of the second-year student of gynaecology sparked nationwide outrage after her husband and parents alleged that she was driven to take her own life by her peers who humiliated and ragged her owing to her ‘caste’.
Mumbai crime branch which is now investigating the case had not had the time to interrogate the accused. Last week, they had sought custody from the Bombay high court but was refused but was allowed them to interrogate the women accused for a few hours. However, they did not file a reply to the bail applications filed by the accused. The court directed them to file the reply and the court would hear arguments on the bail applications on June 17.
The accused women were arrested by Mumbai police on May 29 after there were protests and mounting pressure from family and friends of Tadvi. The accused doctors and victim both used to stay in hostel and work in the gynaecology department of B Y L Nair hospital in South Mumbai. The accused doctors are booked under various sections of Indian Penal Code and under Maharashtra Prohibition of Ragging Act and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
The team, led by NCST chairman Nand Kumar Sai, also met Tadvi’s family Saturday.
“The NCST has demanded that the probe by the Crime Branch into the case be completed as soon as possible… Even the post-mortem report has not been released yet,” Sai told PTI on Sunday.
“It’s not clear yet whether it’s suicide or murder. The matter is under investigation. Let the post-mortem report come out,” he added.
India Today
