State govt making Payal Tadvi suicide case weak: Bheem Army

Mumbai: The Bheem Army Saturday alleged that the state government was purposely rendering Nair Hospital’s Dr Payal Tadvi’s suicide a weak case. They also said that the government should not have appointed an upper caste lawyer like Raja Thakare as the public prosecutor in Dr Tadvi’s case and demanded that the lawyer who specialised in cases under the Atrocities Act be appointed as public prosecutor.

On May 31, the three doctors of the BYL Nair Hospital, arrested in connection with the suicide of Dr Tadvi, a 26-year-old second-year resident, were remanded to judicial custody till June 10.

On Saturday, Bheem Army member Ashok Kamble said, “A lawyer who has experience of handling cases of atrocities should be appointed in the case. Due to the approach of the state government, the parents of the deceased Dr Tadvi were also disappointed.”

Nair Hospital’s disciplinary committee has already suspended four doctors, including resident doctor gynaecologist Dr Yi Ching Ling.

The state government transferred the investigation into the case to the crime branch of Mumbai police last Friday. The day after, the crime branch moved the Sessions court seeking further police custody of the three accused doctors — Hema Ahuja, Bhakti Mehare and Ankita Khandelwal.

Special public prosecutor Thakare had argued that prima facie it appeared that casteist remarks were passed by the accused. He argued that the crime branch had not got enough time to interrogate the accused, and had sought police custody for at least seven days.  However, the Judge did not accept the argument and remanded the trio to judicial custody till June 10.