Mumbai: The roommate of Dr Payal Tadvi has told the Mumbai Police that the trio senior doctors of the BYL Nair Hospital had tortured them resulting in the suicide of her friend (Tadvi).
In her statements to the Mumbai Police, the roommate (name withheld) has said that the trio bullies purposely insulted Dr Tadvi on various occasions and had also increased her work.
The roommate has said that despite she and Dr Tadvi worked efficiently in the initial days, the trio – Dr Hema Ahuja, Dr Bhakti Mehere and Dr Ankita Khandelwal purposely dumped their work on the two juniors.
She has detailed all the instances when the trio insulted her and also Dr Tadvi. “In the first week of September, Dr Hema made me stand for two continuous hours only because Dr Bhakti had complained about me being slow in my work.
I was continuously pulled up for working at a slow pace,” the roommate has said. The trio, according to this roommate, kept on calling some or the other names to her and Dr Tadvi. “They used to call me a dumb person while labelled Dr Tadvi as an over smart student,” the roommate has said.
According to her, she and Dr Tadvi were compelled to skip their meals as the trio had doubled their routine work due to which they hardly got any time to eat.
“We survived on biscuits, but never complained to anyone. Due to mounting work pressure, we failed to meet our deadlines and this gave opportunities to the trio to pull up and insult us in front of every one,” she has told the police.
In December 2018, Payal’s mother had threatened to lodge a complaint against the trio to the Dean of the hospital, the room mate has said. “But I persuaded her not to do so and instead speak to the immediate seniors of the trio.
This backfired on us as the trio became more arrogant towards us,” the statements read. “They told us that we are not at all eligible to work in any ward of the hospital.
They continued to harass and torture us more after the complaint,” the room has been quoted. The room mate has also said that the trio had questioned the eligibilities of Dr Tadvi.
“Dr Hema had asked Dr Tadvi about her caste. She asked her as to which reserved category she belongs to. She later on asked us to get out of the labour room,” the room mate has said.
According to this witness, Dr Tadvi was mentally disturbed on a day prior to the suicide and even on the unfortunate day, when she contacted her on cell phone, she was found to be crying.
She has said that once Dr Tadvi had decided to leave the college but did not do so only on her persuasion. “I heard Dr Tadvi crying on phone I asked her to calm down and assured her that would meet her in the night. But before that she hanged herself,” the room mate has said.
