One of three accused held in tribal doctor suicide case

Mumbai: The Agripada police arrested Dr Bhakti Mehare, one of the three accused who allegedly abetted the suicide of Dr Payal Tadvi, a 26-year-old Muslim from the Tadvi Bhil tribal community, from Mumbai on Tuesday.

Mehare was one of the three senior doctors, at the civic-run BYL Nair Hospital against whom an offence was registered after their colleague ended her life on May 22.

The police is interrogating Mehare on the sequence of events that unfolded ahead of Tadvi’s suicide.

Teams of Agripada police is also on the lookout for two other doctors, Ankita Khandelwal and Hema Ahuja, who have also been named in the FIR.  Khandelwal and Ahuja’s anticipatory bail application is slated to be heard in a Mumbai court on Wednesday. The police said that it is gathering evidence from Mehare’s phone and would also seize the phones of other two accused. The phones were allegedly used to type out casteist slurs against Tadvi, who later hanged herself in her hostel room. “The arrested doctor will be produced before a court on Wednesday. We are interrogating her in connection with the allegations and about the whereabouts of the two,” said an officer of Agripada police station.

Apart from allegedly hurling casteist slurs at Tadvi, the trio also allegedly exchanged several messages among themselves on an app commenting on her work-related knowledge. They had also been allegedly confronting Tadvi in the past while putting her down over her caste, the officials said.

The accused have been booked under the Atrocities Act, Anti-Ragging Act and the Information Technology Act along with section 306 (abetment to suicide) of the Indian Penal Code.