Mumbai Police crime branch to probe doctor Payal Tadvi's suicide case
Mumbai: Mumbai Police crime branch will now probe the alleged suicide committed by doctor Payal Tadvi after some of her senior colleagues passed casteist slurs at her at a state-run hospital here, an official said Thursday.
Considering the seriousness and importance of the case, the investigation has been transferred to the crime branch, Deputy Commissioner of Police Manjunath Singte said.
Tadvi's lawyer Nitin Satpute said the decision came after they demanded that the case be transferred to the CBI or the crime branch as they felt it was not properly investigated by the Agripada police here.
"Wesuspect it to be a case of murder, but the police have not conducted the investigation properly, hence we wanted the case to be transferred to some other probing agency," Satpute said.
Three women doctors - Bhakti Mehere, Hema Ahuja and Ankita Khandelwal - were earlier arrested after their 26-year -old junior colleague Tadvi at the B Y L Nair Hospital here allegedly hanged herself at her hostel room last week, according to the police.
Tadvi's family alleged that the doctors taunted her by ragging and hurling casteist abuses as she belonged to a Scheduled Tribe.
The accused were booked under the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, Anti-Ragging Act, IT Act and section 306 (abetment to suicide) of the Indian Penal Code.
They have been remanded in police custody till Friday.
The police told a special court here on Wednesday that while the mobile phones of the accused were seized, more time was required to recover their WhatsApp chats with the victim.
The police claimed the victim's body had a few injury marks which needed to be probed further. The postmortem report was awaited, they said.
On Tuesday, Tadvi's parents protested at the hospital in Mumbai where she worked. Other protesters also joined her mother Abeda and husband Salman, demanding stringent action against the three seniors.
The Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi and other Dalit and tribal organisations also held protests outside the hospital. Tadvi's mother said her daughter used to tell her about the "torture" she was facing by her seniors on petty issues.
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Another North Goa nightclub sealed; Kejriwal says corruption led to fire tragedy
Panaji (PTI): As part of a crackdown against tourist establishments violating laws and safety norms in the aftermath of the Arpora fire tragedy, Goa authorities on Saturday sealed a renowned club at Vagator and revoked the fire department NOC of another club.
Cafe CO2 Goa, located on a cliff overlooking the Arabian Sea at Vagator beach in North Goa, was sealed. The move came two days after Goya Club, also in Vagator, was shut down for alleged violations of rules.
Elsewhere, campaigning for local body polls, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal said the fire incident at Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub at Arpora, which claimed 25 lives on December 6, happened because the BJP government in the state was corrupt.
An inspection of Cafe CO2 Goa by a state government-appointed team revealed that the establishment, with a seating capacity of 250, did not possess a no-objection certificate (NOC) of the Fire and Emergency Services Department. The club, which sits atop Ozrant Cliff, also did not have structural stability, the team found.
The Fire and Emergency Services on Saturday also revoked the NOC issued to Diaz Pool Club and Bar at Anjuna as the fire extinguishers installed in the establishment were found to be inadequate, said divisional fire officer Shripad Gawas.
A notice was issued to Nitin Wadhwa, the partner of the club, he said in the order.
Campaigning at Chimbel village near Panaji in support of his party's Zilla Panchayat election candidate, Aam Aadmi Party leader Kejriwal said the nightclub fire at Arpora happened because of the "corruption of the Pramod Sawant-led state government."
"Why this fire incident happened? I read in the newspapers that the nightclub had no occupancy certificate, no building licence, no excise licence, no construction licence or trade licence. The entire club was illegal but still it was going on," he said.
"How could it go on? Couldn't Pramod Sawant or anyone else see it? I was told that hafta (bribe) was being paid," the former Delhi chief minister said.
A person can not work without bribing officials in the coastal state, Kejriwal said, alleging that officers, MLAs and even ministers are accepting bribes.
