Accused say 'didn't know' Dr Payal Tadvi's caste, family calls it murder

There were accusations of murder, while the accused professed ignorance about Dr Payal Tadvi's caste as three Nair hospital doctors were presented in the Special Court on Wednesday.

Drs Bhakti Mehare, 28, Hema Ahuja, 28, and Ankita Khandelwal, 27, are accused of abetting the suicide of the doctor by deliberately harassing her and levelling caste slurs. The police are still looking for Payal's suicide note and the court sent the trio to police custody till Friday.

Advocate Nitin Satpute, who represented Tadvi's family, told the court that Mehare, Ahuja and Khandelwal deliberately harassed Payal on the basis of her caste which drove her to take the extreme step. He also said that Payal's body bore injury marks, which points towards murder, masked as suicide.

However, the three accused doctors said there were ignorant of Payal's caste, and only reprimanded her in connection to instances of negligence of duty.

Citing a WhatsApp chat between Payal and her mother as evidence, Ponda pointed out that Payal told her mother that no one in her college knew she belonged to the SC/ST community." The allegations of ragging, (application of) the SC/ST Act and imposing section 306 (abetment of suicide) needs to be understood," argued their Defence Lawyer Aabad Ponda.

"Ragging means physical or mental humiliation or torture, which is not evident in the police reports. As seniors, the accused had the responsibility of assigning work to her. Tadvi was not performing her duties and there were many instances of negligence. Due to this, the seniors refrained from assigning tasks to her but didn't torture or abuse her."

Sanjeev Bahl, another lawyer representing the accused, argued that Payal was married, but lived in the hostel and not at home. Thus familial strife could have been the reason behind the extreme step, and not ragging.