Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Monday termed the death of Dr Payal Salman Tadvi, a medical student in Mumbai, "a murder of the constitutional protection given to the Scheduled Tribes", the community she hailed from.
"The suicide of the brilliant Dr Payal Tadvi belonging to the scheduled tribal community is a result of comments against her caste and the reservation system. This is a case of murder. It is a murder of the protection given by the Constitution. Is this the direction the country is heading towards?" Yadav wrote on Twitter.
Tadvi, a 23-year-old postgraduate student at Nair Hospital in Mumbai, had on May 22 committed suicide after allegedly facing harassment at the hands of three senior doctors.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra State Commission for Women has issued a notice to Dean of the BYL Nair Hospital seeking a report on the action taken in the case.
Her mother Abeda Tadvi had alleged that three senior doctors - Hema Ahuja, Bhakti Mehar, and Ankita Khandilwal - persistently tortured her daughter which resulted in her taking the extreme step.
"Whenever she used to speak to me on phone, she would say 'these (three senior doctors) people torture me as I belong to a tribal community, use casteist slurs.' We want justice for her," Abeda had told ANI.
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After her allegations, the BYL Nair Hospital administration formed an anti-ragging committee to probe into the suicide.
The Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) has suspended the three doctors. The accused doctors, on Monday, wrote to the association urging to ensure 'fair' probe into the issue.