india

Updated: Jul 08, 2019 17:49 IST

Months after the suicide of Payal Tadvi, a doctor who ended her life over alleged harassment and casteist abuse by senior colleagues, an RTI reply has made a shocking revelation that the hospital had received four ragging complaints in the past five years but met the students only once.

“The Anti-Ragging Committee received its first complaint from two MBBS students in 2014. The committee again received two ragging complaints in January 2015 from a first-year microbiology resident doctor. Subsequently, another complaint was received in March 2015 from a second-year physiology doctor,” said BYL Nair Hospital in a response to an RTI application filed by activist Shakeel Ahmed Shaikh.

However, the RTI response made the shocking revelation that the panel has only met students on one occasion -- in August 2017.

The hospital had also received another complaint in October 2018 via the anti-ragging toll-free number.

“We had suspended two students for six months from the hostel of our hospital. Two other students, who ragged juniors, were suspended from the hostel permanently,” the official response added.

The hospital had claimed that it holds regular meetings to sensitise the students about tough ragging laws.

“The hospital’s Anti-Ragging Committee has conducted 21 meetings since August 2013 to discuss either the complaints or requests by the accused students or parents, apart from formal discussions on plans to sensitise the students,” it had said earlier.

Tadvi, who belonged to the Scheduled Tribe community, ended her life in her hostel room at BYL Nair Hospital here on May 22. She had left a suicide note in her phone accusing three senior women doctors of harassment and hurling casteist slurs.