Two former hospital employees filed police complaints against a doctor on Friday, accusing him of sexual harassment and rape. The doctor also owns a hospital in the Tapi area, located in Vyara, Gujarat.
This occurred one day after the police were instructed to file a complaint against the doctor by the Tapi chief judicial magistrate.
The two 28-year-old women had filed two applications against the doctor at the Vyara police station on June 29.
On July 1 and 4, they returned to the police station individually to respond to questions from the officers, but no formal complaint was filed.
After that, on July 8, they presented separate pleas to the court through advocate Nitin Pradhan. The doctor's spouse reported the two women to the Vyara police station on the same day, alleging they were being unfaithful, and the police station lodged a formal complaint. The two women, according to the wife, stole money from the hospital between 2019 and 2024 totaling Rs 3.23 crore for their own purposes.
Subsequently, on July 11, Chief Judicial Magistrate G V Patel instructed the Vyara police to file two separate charges against the doctor based on two applications that the women had brought to the police station.
One of the women worked at the hospital's reception counter, while the other worked for hospital management, according to the FIR lodged on Friday.
According to the management employee, the doctor had called her into a hospital room in January and sexually assaulted her. He also allegedly threatened to fire her if she told anybody about the incident. The woman has reportedly been sexually assaulted in the hospital several times since.
The second complainant claimed that the doctor occasionally made inappropriate physical contact with her and asked for favors, which she denied. She also claimed to have received vulgar messages from the doctor.
Following this, in April, both of the women left their positions. The charges state that the doctor persisted in threatening them to keep quiet.
When contacted, advocate Nitin Pradhan stated “When both the women visited the police station on June 29, their statements were recorded on camera but no case was lodged. While on the other hand, when the doctor’s wife filed a complaint against the women, they were booked the same day. We don’t understand why the police delayed lodging of FIR in our case.”
Inspector N S Chauhan of the Vyara town police responded to the reason for the delay in filing the FIR by saying, “We had accepted the applications filed by both the women and were working on it. In the meantime, the doctor’s wife also filed a complaint against the two women and we registered a cheating case. We were also looking into the applications filed by the two women. But they moved court, which directed us to register an offense, which we have done.”
“The medical examination of both women were completed on Saturday… The accused doctor, meanwhile, is absconding,” Chauhan added.
(Input from various sources)
(Rehash/ Priyanka Pandey)
