Cop Accused Of Raping Maharashtra Doctor Who Died By Suicide Arrested

Police sub-inspector Gopal Badane, an accused in the alleged suicide of a woman government doctor in Maharashtra's Satara district, was arrested on Saturday evening hours after a co-accused had been caught.

Earlier in the morning, a team from the Phaltan police arrested software engineer Prashant Bankar, one of the two men the doctor had named in her suicide note, from Pune.

PSI Badane arrived at the Phaltan Rural Police Station and surrendered, said Satara SP Tushar Doshi.

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

The doctor, 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 was 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.

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

Her relatives demand 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 pressured 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 PSI (named in the note), but her complaints were not looked into," the relative stated.

BJP MLA Suresh Dhas demanded that the MP who allegedly tried to pressurise 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 woman's family, she wanted to do an MD (Doctor of Medicine) course, and was preparing for it.

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

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