‘Navin got the knife from his Colaba clinic’

The surgical knife with which Dr Navin Hiranandani allegedly killed himself on Thursday night, was procured by him from his Colaba clinic a couple of days before the tragedy, said Niranjan and Surendra Hiranandani, brothers of the victim. The ENT specialist had allegedly used the knife to slash a vein on his right arm at his Malabar Hill residence on Little Gibbs Road.

The brothers’ revelation gave the impression that the suicide was premeditated, but the police have said that they would be checking every angle.

Niranjan and Surendra, who spoke to mediapersons in Powai on Saturday, said that Navin had been “too upset” with his defeat in the ENT specialists’ association elections. They added that Navin was a “god-like figure”, and he had stopped taking any interest in the family’s construction business since 1981. Trashing conjectures that  a property-related dispute might have pushed Navin over the brink, his brothers said, “There are no secrets in this regard.”

The police are waiting for the post-mortem report, and are searching for “more” clues which can throw light on the doctor’s suicide.

A chit recovered from near the victim on Friday had ‘I have died of heart attack’ scribbled on it. “The chit does not speak of suicide. We will have it analysed as it was possibly written in longhand by the victim himself. We are in the process of having it verified by our handwriting experts,” said Isaq Bagwan, a senior police inspector with Malabar Hill police station.