MUMBAI: A day after a BYL Nair Hospital doctor was arrested on charges of abetting the suicide of junior gynaecologist Payal Tadvi (26), two other accused doctors who were on the run were arrested on Wednesday. The three doctors were produced before a special court for SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, which sent them to police custody until Friday.

While Dr Bhakti Mehare (26) was arrested on Tuesday afternoon , Dr Hema Ahuja (28) was nabbed around 12.30 am Wednesday and Dr Ankita Khandelwal (27) around 6.20 am. After Payal hanged herself in her hostel room on May 22, her family, which belongs to the Adivasi Tadvi Bhil community, blamed the three seniors for her suicide.

The trio were produced before special judge R M Sadrani. Payal’s husband, Dr Salman Tadvi, was also present in the court room . Seeking custody of the accused, police said that it was established that despite being highly educated and doctors by profession, the accused, who belonged to a higher caste, had mentally harassed Payal who belonged to a scheduled tribe. Cops said they needed to investigate if the accused had any other intentions.

Cops also claimed that they needed to investigate Payal’s family’s suspicions on why the accused had gone to the room where she committed suicide. Further, they said suicide note had not yet been found and they needed to probe the family’s suspicions of the accused having taken it away .

Nitin Satpute, advocate for the victim’s family, submitted that this was a case of murder as there were marks on the victim’s back and this was inconsistent with the suicide story. He also said there is a possibility that the accused might have “hanged the deceased”. “The victim was married to a doctor. However, instead of staying with him she still chose to stay in the hostel. There were some family issues too and she must have succumbed to the pressure,” said Mehare’s lawyer.

