Medico’s senior held for her murder in ICU

The Dibrugarh police on Wednesday arrested a doctor of the Assam Medical College for the murder of a first year postgraduate student of the Gynaecology Department – Dr Sarita Toshniwal – in the duty room of an Intensive Care Unit.

The police have found that he was in collusion with the ward boy who was arrested a few hours after the crime on May 9.

The arrested doctor is a final year postgraduate student in the same department.

Superintendent of Police, Dibrugarh, Rana Bhuyan told

The Hindu that the doctor, identified as Dipmoni Saikia, was arrested under Section 302/34/120(B) of Indian Penal Code on the basis of a confession given by ward boy Kiro Mech and “circumstantial evidence”.

(According to PTI, he was picked up from among protesting junior doctors and students demanding justice for their murdered colleague.)

Later, the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Dibrugarh, remanded the doctor in seven days police custody.

The SP said the doctor denied his involvement in the case. The police were awaiting the post-mortem report.

“However, the ward body, a casual worker, confessed that he was involved in the murder of Dr. Sarita as Dr. Saikia had promised him a permanent job. Kiro Mech admitted that both of them strangled Dr. Sarita to death when she was sleeping on a bed in the duty room after overnight duty in the ICU. We have also recovered the cell phone of Dr. Sarita, which was concealed by the ward boy, and we hope to get some more leads about the motive behind the murder,” the SP added.

Relatives of the junior doctor, including his mother, claimed that Dr. Saikia was a victim of a “conspiracy.”

The Assam government had announced a probe by the Criminal Investigation Department into the incident.