Two months after a 24-year-old student pursuing his Masters in Dental Surgery in Mumbai died by suicide, the Mumbai Police was probing the role of a senior faculty member at a public hospital, following allegations from her parents she was subjected to harassment. A 60-year-old senior faculty member of a public hospital sought anticipatory bail from a sessions court, which was granted on Thursday.

Last month, the court had granted bail to a 31-year-old insurance agent, who was arrested for the abetment of suicide of the student, based on a purported six-page handwritten suicide note where she allegedly mentioned being insulted by him. They were in a relationship earlier.

The note ends with the victim apologising to her parents, sister and the senior faculty member.

“There is material on record that applicant/accused (the faculty member) deposited her fees of Rs 2 lakh. This fact was not concealed from her parents. Deceased was well-educated, completed her BDS and pursuing her post graduation, she could not be called as weak personality.

Any abnormal behaviour of applicant being professor of dental college, it could have been noticed by any friend or classmates during education of 5-6 years,” special judge G G Bhansali said. The court also said that there is no allegation or any incidents quoted from her education period and her work, about being subjected to caste-based humiliation made against the professor.

The police have filed an FIR under the section on abetment of suicide of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and relevant sections of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The victim’s family sought a probe not only against the agent arrested earlier but the professor and another doctor, claiming they played an active role in her continuous mental harassment.

On March 6, when the student did not come out of her bedroom and did not respond to repeated calls from her parents in their home in Antop Hill, her family broke open the door and found her dead. She was pursuing her Master’s in Dental Surgery from a Navi Mumbai college while also working part-time at a public hospital in Mumbai.

The faculty member, in his pre-arrest bail plea, said that he was her teacher and there is no material in the police probe that he had abused her on the basis of her caste. He also said that he had cooperated with the police probe and attended the police station for five days last month. He also said the police found letters and WhatsApp communication between the two which would show that he was a “fatherly figure” to the deceased. The police opposed the plea stating they want to conduct a probe.

The victim’s family also filed an intervention plea but did not argue stating that no video-recording was being done of the proceedings as per the provisions of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, invoked in the case.

The police referred to a chat between the victim and another doctor, purported to be about the faculty and the victim, mentioning how, “it is clearly not a teacher student relationship”. The faculty’s lawyers told the court that the suicide note by the victim did not mention any
issues with him. A message sent by the victim’s father to the faculty, praising him and another message by the victim to him on his birthday, where she has called him a guide and a mentor, was also shown to the court.