Doctor’s suicide after casteist slurs; MSCW asks dean to submit a report

Agencies

May 28, 2019

Mumbai, May 28: Amid growing protests by students and tribal organisations over the suicide of a doctor in a state-run hospital, allegedly after casteist slurs, the state women's commission on Monday asked the dean to submit a report in the case.

In a letter to the dean of the Mumbai civic body-run BYL Nair Hospital Ramesh Bharmal, the Maharashtra State Commission for Women sought to know whether the Anti-ragging Act was effectively implemented in the institution.

The report, which also seeks information on "lack of communication" between the administration and students, is to be submitted within eight days, the Commission said.

Meanwhile, the three women doctors at the hospital, accused of driving their 26-year-old colleague to suicide after tormenting her with casteist slurs, have sought a "fair probe" in the case.

In a letter to the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD), the three - Ankita Khandelwal, Hema Ahuja and Bhakti Mehare - said they want the college to conduct a fair investigation in the matter and "give justice" to them.

"This is not the way to do an investigation through police force and media pressure, without hearing our side," the three doctors said in the letter.

MARD has suspended the three doctors.

A senior MARD official said, We have credible inputs that the three doctors made casteist remarks against Dr Payal Tadvi, who allegedly committed suicide. We will cooperate with the police for the further investigations.

To prevent such incidents, MARD has decided to organise sensitisation programmes for second and third year undergraduate medical students, the official said.

The FIR filed after the second year PG student ended her life, stated that her seniors often threatened her, saying she wouldn't be allowed into operation theatres or allowed to perform deliveries. She was also mocked for being a tribal on WhatsApp groups.

Tadvi committed suicide on May 22. Her family has alleged that the doctors taunted her for belonging to a scheduled tribe.

The hospital's anti-ragging committee is expected to submit a report on the suicide. The administration has issued notices to the head of the department and the unit head of the obstetrics and gynaecology department.

The three doctors have been booked under the Atrocities Act, the Anti-Ragging Act and the IT Act and Section 306 (abetment to suicide) of the IPC.

Tadvi's mother Abeda Tadvi said from her hometown in Jalgaon district of north Maharashtra that her daughter had called her up on May 22 about her alleged harassment.

In Mumbai on Monday, members of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, All India Democratic Association, Democratic Youth Federation of India and Students Federation of India staged a protest outside the college and hospital.

A tribal organisation has planned a march from the hospital premises to the Agripada police station on Tuesday, to demand arrest of the three doctors.

Holding the Nair hospital administration responsible for the suicide, the organisation has demanded action against the dean.

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188 Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli army in Gaza

News Network

November 10,2024

The media office in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime has been waging a genocidal war since last October, says as many as 188 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the onset of the brutal military onslaught.

The office provided the figure on Saturday, naming four journalists as the most recent victims of the onslaught.

It identified the foursome as Zahraa Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Ahmad Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Mustafa Khadr Bahar, and Abdel Rahman Khadr Bahar.

The office said it “strongly condemns the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation and holds it fully responsible for committing this heinous crime.”

“We call on the international community, international organizations, and those involved in journalistic work worldwide to take action against the occupation, pursue it in international courts for its ongoing crimes, and pressure it to halt the genocide and the targeted killings of Palestinian journalists,” it said.

Earlier in the day, the office said the Israeli regime had bombed the tents sheltering journalists and displaced persons at the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza for the ninth consecutive time.

The atrocity that claimed the lives of two people and injured 26 others came as part of “the genocidal crimes committed by the Israeli occupation army against hospitals, civilians, and displaced persons,” it said.

The media office held the regime and the United States, its biggest ally, as well as other countries aiding the genocide fully responsible for such systematic crimes.

At least 43,552 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 102,765 others wounded since the launch of the war that followed a retaliatory operation by Gaza’s resistance groups.

The fatalities include 44 people, who were killed across the coastal sliver, in the most recent phase of the military onslaught.

As many as 24 of the victims were killed in the northern part of the territory, where the regime has markedly intensified its deadly attacks for weeks.

They included an eight-year-old child and a five-year-old one, who lost their lives after Israeli warplanes targeted a group of minors filling up jerry cans with water alongside their mother at the Jabalia Refugee camp.

Gaza’s heath ministry, meanwhile, said a number of victims remained under the rubble and in the streets following Israeli airstrikes, saying ambulances and civil defense teams could not reach them due to the sheer extent of the destruction caused by the raids and obstruction caused by the regime.

Also on Saturday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, a United Nations-backed assessment, warned that famine was looming in northern Gaza amid escalated Israeli aggression and the regime’s near-total siege of the targeted areas.

The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of "an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip."

On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing "catastrophic" food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.

The IPC report classified that figure as Phase 5 -- a situation when "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident."

The Israeli military, however, questioned the report's credibility.

"To date, all assessments by the IPC have proven incorrect and inconsistent with the situation on the ground," the army said in a statement, denouncing "partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests."

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