The Maharashtra Police have taken into custody a techie and a police sub-inspector in connection with the suicide of a government doctor in Satara district that sparked a political uproar in the state.
Prashant Banker, a software engineer, was arrested on Saturday morning, while Gopal Badane, the police officer, was held later in the evening. Both of them had been named in the suicide note the woman had allegedly written on her palm.
The doctor, hailing from Beed district and posted at a government hospital in Satara, had accused Badane of raping her multiple times and Banker of mental harassment.
However, giving a fresh twist to the case, the techie told police during the interrogation that the woman doctor used to harass him by insisting he marry her and maintain a physical relationship.
A Times of India report quoted a police officer as saying that a large number of chats and call recordings between the accused and the deceased have been recovered, in which the woman was speaking about the stress and pressure she was undergoing.
Banker’s family, too, claimed that the doctor wanted to marry him, but he turned down her proposal.
They also dismissed reports that Banker was arrested from a farmhouse in Pune and said he was taken into custody from their house in Phaltan after being asked to surrender.
“We had called him and told him to surrender. His social media records and call details have been given to the police. My brother never called the doctor. Instead, it was the doctor who used to call him repeatedly and harass him,” Banker’s brother told TOI.
The woman had been staying at the techie’s house for the last one year, paying a monthly rent of Rs 4,000.
Banker’s younger sister said her brother and the doctor came to know each other after she treated him for dengue infection.
“Last month, my brother came to Phaltan to recover from dengue infection. The doctor treated him, and they exchanged numbers. Around 15 days ago, she proposed marriage to him. He turned down the proposal. During Diwali, she seemed tense, but we thought it was work-related,” she told the newspaper.
A Satara district court has sent Banker to four-day police custody.
