A magistrate court in Dadar has sentenced a suspended ward boy of the civic-run KEM hospital to two years in jail for sexually assaulting a woman doctor in 2014 while she was on a night shift.
The court also imposed a fine of Rs. 10,000 on 46-year-old Popat Bhavari. Metropolitan Magistrate Kranti M. Pingale has also directed that a copy of its judgment be sent to the KEM hospital.
The court said in its judgment that it is to be noted that Bhavari was employed at an eminent hospital-like KEM as a ward boy. It has clearly come in evidence, it said, that daily, as many as 15,000 to 20,000 persons visit the hospital and being a ward boy, he must be coming in touch with patients and their relatives. Magistrate Pingale said that among relatives, there will be women, young girls as well and women relatives who may have to stay day and night at the hospital. The court added that the complainant herself being a doctor. In such circumstances, his act with the woman doctor was “extremely condemnable”.
The order said that him being a ward boy, his way of looking towards the women should be a responsible one and noted further that the present incident had taken place at night.
It said that as a hospital employee, he should have been responsible for the safety of a woman doctor on the night shift, but instead, he sexually assaulted a woman doctor.
Refusing to show him leniency, the court said that this is the time to put a stop to such an attitude, adding that only if persons of such a mindset as the accused are punished severely, crimes against women can be prevented.
The incident had taken place on Dec 11, 2014, a little past midnight in the hospital’s lift. The doctor had testified that after a staff member and some other persons who were in the lift had alighted, the accused had groped her private part and then tried to kiss her. The ward boy then fled when the lift door opened on a floor.
