Patna hospital co-director murder: Husband plotted murder after his affair with staff exposed

Youth stabbed to death while cops slept metres away in Ahmedabad

The Patna police on Tuesday arrested five people, including the husband and brother-in-law of Surbhi Raj, the co-director of Patna’s Asia Hospital, who was shot dead by unidentified men inside her chamber on Saturday evening.

“The accused included her husband, Rakesh Roshan, his younger brother Atul, and three hospital staff members, one of whom is a woman,” informed Atulesh Jha, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), Patna City-1.

According to the police, the murder was driven by Rakesh's extramarital relationship with a 30-year-old woman, an employee of the same hospital, which Surbhi strongly opposed. On Saturday, Rakesh, with the help of his accomplices, allegedly planned and executed her murder.

Also, Surbhi had recently found some financial irregularities in the hospital record after she started actively managing the hospital’s operations. This might have been another reason leading to tensions between the couple, Indian Express reported.

Preliminary findings indicated that the woman was physically assaulted before being shot. Police found signs of blunt force trauma on her face, suggesting she had been severely beaten. The assailants then shot her five times at close range and attempted to remove evidence from the crime spot.

"Her husband's extramarital relationship was a source of distress for her. We have gathered evidence on both these aspects and arrested five people, including her husband, Rakesh. They were all involved in the murder. However, it is not yet confirmed who fired the shots," Atulesh Jha, sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) I of Patna City, said.

Surbhi was found dead in her chamber at the hospital near Dhanuki Mor under the Agamkuan police station area. She was taken to AIIMS-Patna, where the doctors declared her dead.

Raj and Roshan got married in 2017 and have two sons aged five and three. The couple founded the hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. They focused on administrative operations as neither of them had medical degrees. They also acquired two adjacent buildings recently for expansion of the hospital’s operations.