After Maharashtra doctor dies of suicide, cop accused of raping her arrested

Badane surrendered at the Phaltan Rural Police Station in Satara on Saturday evening following which he was arrested, Superintendent of Police Tushar Doshi said.

Earlier, on Saturday morning, a team from the Phaltan police arrested software engineer Prashant Bankar, whom the doctor had named along with Badane in her suicide note, from Pune.

Bankar, accused of mentally harassing the victim and facing abetment of suicide charge, was produced on Saturday before a Satara district court which sent him to police custody for four days.

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 Thursday night.

In the suicide note written on her palm, she alleged that police sub-inspector Badane raped her on multiple occasions, while Bankar, a software engineer, mentally harassed her.

A case of rape and abetment of suicide had been registered against the duo in Phaltan in Satara district.

According to the police, Bankar is the son of the landlord of the house where the doctor resided.

She had allegedly called him over the phone and chatted with him before ending her life, they said.

Sub-inspector Badane was suspended from service after his name came up during the probe into the case.

The doctor, meanwhile, was cremated at her native place in Beed's Wadwani tehsil on Friday night.

Her relatives have demanded capital punishment for the accused in the case.

She complained multiple times about harassment, but her grievances were not addressed, a relative alleged while talking to a news channel.

Another relative claimed the victim was pressed to change medical reports at the sub-district hospital where she worked.

"Political people in Phaltan often asked her to change medical reports as she used to be regularly on autopsy duty. She had complained multiple times against the SI (named in the note), but her complaints were not looked into," the relative said.

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Ambadas Danve accused former BJP MP Ranjitsingh Naik Nimbalkar of pressing the doctor on one occasion in the past. Nimbalkar, however, denied the allegation, saying it had no truth, and his name was being dragged into the case deliberately.

BJP MLA Suresh Dhas demanded that the MP who allegedly tried to press the woman doctor be made an accused in the case. He did not name any leader, though.

As per a purported reply submitted by the woman doctor earlier this year to authorities in Satara district after a subordinate police official complained about her, she faced threats from police officials over her way of working, and also taunts over crime in Beed, her native district.

The woman's two cousins, also doctors, alleged that the hospital administration assigned her post-mortem duties only to harass her.

According to the victim's family, she wanted to pursue the MD, and was preparing for it.

A loan of Rs 3 lakh taken for her MBBS was yet to be repaid, her uncle told PTI.

"Her father is a farmer, who is not educated. I am a teacher and I took her to Beed for schooling. She did not want to be just an MBBS, but wanted to pursue MD in medicine, ENT or non-clinical branches," he said.