A police sub-inspector and a software engineer have been arrested in connection with the alleged rape and suicide of a woman government doctor in Maharashtra’s Satara district, police said on Saturday.
Police sub-inspector (PSI) Gopal Badane, accused of repeatedly raping the doctor, surrendered at the Phaltan Rural Police Station on Saturday evening, hours after the arrest of Prashant Bankar, a software engineer also named in the suicide note, from Pune.
Satara Superintendent of Police Tushar Doshi confirmed Badane’s surrender. Bankar, accused of mentally harassing the doctor, was produced before a district court and remanded in four days’ police custody.
The doctor, a native of Beed district and posted at a government hospital in Satara, was found hanging in a Phaltan hotel room on Thursday night. In her suicide note, reportedly written on her palm, she alleged that Badane had sexually assaulted her several times, while Bankar harassed her mentally.
Police have registered a case of rape and abetment of suicide against both men. Bankar is the son of the landlord of the house where the doctor had lived. Officials said she spoke to him over the phone shortly before taking her life.
Following the incident, Badane was suspended from service.
The doctor was cremated at her native village in Beed’s Wadwani tehsil on Friday night. Her family has demanded capital punishment for both accused, alleging that she had complained several times about harassment but no action was taken.
Relatives also claimed she faced pressure from “political figures” in Phaltan to alter medical and autopsy reports while on duty. “She had complained against the PSI several times, but her complaints were ignored,” one relative told a TV channel.
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Ambadas Danve alleged that former BJP MP Ranjitsingh Naik Nimbalkar had once pressurised the doctor through intermediaries. Nimbalkar denied the allegation, calling it “baseless” and politically motivated. BJP MLA Suresh Dhas also demanded that any politician who pressured the doctor be booked as an accused.
An official communication written earlier this year by the deceased doctor indicated she had been facing threats and taunts from police officials regarding her work and her Beed origin.
Her cousins, who are also doctors, alleged that she was deliberately assigned post-mortem duties to harass her. The doctor had aspired to pursue an MD degree, her family said, adding that she was still repaying a Rs 3 lakh education loan from her MBBS studies.
“She wanted to specialise further and was preparing for the MD entrance exam,” her uncle said. “Her father is a farmer, and we were proud of how far she had come.”
(With inputs from agencies)
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