A former Haryana Indian Medical Association president, his wife and another doctor were booked for abetment to suicide, a day after a young woman journalist with the web portal of an English daily leapt to her death from her fifth floor flat in Sector 46 here.
Based on the complaint of the deceased’s father Ravi Tiwari, the police lodged a First Information Report under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code naming Faridabad’s prominent paediatrician Anil Goyal, his gynaecologist wife Archana Goyal and Dr. Dhawal.
Hailing from Indore in Madhya Pradesh, Puja Tiwari, stayed alone in a rented flat in Sadhbhawan Apartments. However, his journalist friend Amreen Khan and Haryana Police Inspector Amit Kumar were also present with her in the flat when she took the extreme step on May 1. Amreen had come to stay with her on April 22. She had come from Indore in search of a job. Amit is a family friend of the Tiwaris, the police said.
Blame Game
Puja had conducted a sting operation on the Goyals for allegedly practising female foeticide this past month following which the doctor-couple had lodged an FIR against her for allegedly trying to extort Rs.2 lakh. According to the police, she was suspended from her job with the news portal following the registration of the case and was stressed. Puja’s brother Sourav said that she was left in a lurch by her journalist-friends as well and no one believed her. “The news about registration of case against her was carried prominently in local newspapers and even went viral on the social media. All this left her shattered and she went into depression,” said Sourav. The family blamed the doctors for allegedly registering a false case and causing her mental trauma.
Dr. Goyal, however, dismissed the allegations against him and his wife as “baseless” and instead demanded a probe into the role of the police inspector who was present with her. “We had no communication with the journalist after the registration of the case on April 8. It is a baseless allegation that we forced her to commit suicide. The police are trying to protect the police inspector who was present with her at the time of suicide. Earlier, the family was accusing the inspector, but they were later tutored to put the blame on doctors to protect the inspector,” said Dr. Goyal. Meanwhile, an audio clip featuring the police inspector and the journalist quarrelling on the night of May 1 also appeared and was also doing the rounds. “We have registered an FIR based on the complaint of the parents of the deceased, but we will investigate all aspects of the case. We will also investigate the audio clip and the records of conversation between the journalist and the police inspector,” said the Commissioner of Police (Faridabad) Hanif Qureshi.
