Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Oct 27 (PTI) NCP MLA Dhananjay Munde has demanded that a committee headed by a woman IPS officer be set up to investigate the alleged suicide of a woman doctor in Maharashtra’s Satara district.
Speaking to reporters after meeting the doctor’s family members at her native place in Beed district on Sunday, the former state minister also demanded that the Satara police be kept away from the investigation.
The doctor, hailing from Beed district in the Marathwada region of central Maharashtra and posted at a government hospital in Satara district, was found hanging in a hotel room in Phaltan town on the night of October 23.
In the suicide note written on her palm, she alleged that police sub-inspector Gopal Badane raped her on multiple
occasions, while Prashant Bankar, a software engineer, mentally harassed her.
The sub-inspector and the engineer were arrested on Saturday.
Munde alleged that the doctor took the extreme step after being harassed by police and medical officers in Satara.
“Two days earlier (before suicide), the doctor asked her cousin for her caste certificate, required to pursue post-graduation. If the doctor wished to do PG, how could she commit suicide?” asked the legislator, who represents the Parli constituency in Beed district.
“I have asked the CM to set up an inquiry committee headed by a senior woman IPS officer, and demanded that the investigation take place without the involvement of any officer from that (Satara) district,” Munde said.
This is a different case because the police were “harassing” the woman doctor for issuing “wrong certificates”, he said.
He also asked why the police took the body for autopsy before the doctor’s family members reached there, and said this should also be investigated.
“The autopsy took a long time in Satara. The police officials who were present at that time and later working on the case should be investigated. Their call records should also be checked. The names of an MP and two PAs have cropped up in connection with the case,” he said.
“I will not sit quiet till justice is served to the doctor,” Munde added.
He also claimed the doctor was harassed because she belonged to a particular community and hailed from Beed.
Munde further said leaders who earlier maligned the image of Beed district did not think that some of its natives were studying elsewhere.
“Such incidents (like the doctor’s suicide) would not have taken place if such defamation had not been done,” he said.
“The leaders (who defamed Beed) should think of this now,” he added.
Notably, Munde had to resign from the Maharashtra cabinet earlier this year, after his close aide was arrested in the brutal murder of a sarpanch in Beed district. PTI AW GK
