Police sub-inspector Gopal Badane, who was one of the accused in the alleged suicide of a female doctor in Maharashtra’s Satara district, has been arrested. Earlier on Saturday, another accused, who is a software engineer, Prashant Bankar, was arrested in connection with the suicide case. The doctor named two men in her suicide note.
PSI Gopal Badane was arrested after he landed at Phaltan Rural Police Station and surrendered, Satara SP Tushar Doshi said.
Prashant Bankar, accused of psychologically harassing the victim and accused of abetting suicide, was produced before the Satara District Court, which sent him to police custody for four days.
A doctor hailing from Beed district in central Maharashtra’s Marathwada region and posted at a government hospital in Satara district was found hanging in a hotel room in Phaltan town on Thursday evening.
In her palm-written suicide note, the doctor alleged that PSI Gopal Badane had raped her on multiple occasions and Prashant Bankar had psychologically harassed her. The banker was the son of the landlord of the house where the doctor lived.
The note read: “Badne raped me four times. He subjected me to rape, mental and physical abuse for over five months.”
She had complained of harassment several times but her complaints were not addressed, her relative claimed while talking to a news channel. Another relative alleged that the victim was pressured to change medical reports at the district hospital where she worked.
“Phaltan politicians often asked her to change the medical reports as she used to undergo post-mortem regularly. She complained several times to the PSI (said in the note) but her complaints were not investigated,” the relative said.
Meanwhile, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Ambadas Danve accused former BJP MP Ranjitsingh Naik Nimbalkar of pressuring a woman doctor on one occasion in the past. Speaking to reporters, Danve claimed that two of Nimbalkar’s personal assistants once brokered a phone call between him and a doctor to pressure her to declare an eligible accused (brought to a government hospital for medical examination after his arrest) as unfit and vice versa.
Nimbalkar, in his response, said that the allegation was not true and his name was deliberately dragged into the case.
