On May 12, 2018, 23-year-old Dr Payal Salman Tadvi started her new job as a resident doctor at the prominent BYL Nair Hospital in Mumbai. She shared her happiness on Facebook and her post received over 800 likes and 550 congratulatory messages. She was the first one in her family to pursue medicine and graduate with an MBBS degree. But exactly 12 months and ten days later, on May 22 this year, she committed suicide in the same hospital by hanging herself inside her room which she shared with three other girl residents.
The police, on Tuesday, arrested one of the girls, Dr Bhakti Mehar on charges of abetment of suicide of Payal, her junior, by ragging and bullying her to the point of daily harassment. Two others—Dr Hema Ahuja and Dr Ankita Khandelwal—who have also been charged for bullying and harassing Payal, have filed an anticipatory bail and the plea is likely to be heard in the sessions court on Wednesday. They have been booked for abetment of suicide under sections of the Maharashtra Prohibition of Ragging Act and Prevention of Atrocities Act.
Payal's mother Abeda Tadvi (53) and husband Salman Tadvi, who teaches as an assistant professor in a medical college in the state, allege that the girl was facing mental harassment and casteist slurs from three senior female doctors at the hospital. It got so unbearable to the point that drove her to end her life.
Dr Ramesh Bharmal, Dean of Nair Hospital, admitted that the authorities had received a letter from the girl's parents requesting she be shifted to another room, as she had complained multiple times of mental harassment. "The matter was discussed with the head of the department of obstetrics and gyneacology Dr Shirodkar who tackled it at her end. Clearly, the room was not changed. But I was not informed about all this and that is the reason we gave a show-cause notice to Dr Sneha Shirodkar because the request was not brought to the notice of the dean's office either in written or verbal communication or even to MARD (Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors) and the anti-ragging committee. The unit head, Dr Chingling Yie, too, was given the notice and suspended."
Doctors across the state have taken aggressively to social media, demanding justice for Tadvi, who belonged to the Adivasi Tadvi Bhil community, a scheduled tribe. After successfully completing her MBBS from Government Medical Collge in Miraj, Tadvi went to Sangli for her year-long internship and thereafter came to Nair Hospital to pursue her post graduation in gynecology.
