Doctor rapes Patient in Indore?

NK SINGH

As a not-so-distinguished member of the Fourth Estate, I am used to policemen scowling at me but never before in my career had any policeman refused to meet me.

"Our investigating officer is very busy", said Mr Surendra Kumar, the burly, six-footer SP of Indore.

I had called on him to gather information about the recent sensational arrest of a prominent Indore doctor on the charge of allegedly raping one of his patients while "examining" her in the privacy of the clinic.

I have been trying to meet the concerned officer, without any success, for the last month. But he avoided me like the plague. 

Incidentally, there is another case pending in the court in which two police officers, along with some others, have been accused of shielding the doctor involved in the rape case.

In a case filed in the court of the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Naresh Chelawat, publisher of a local evening daily, alleged that the police had destroyed evidence to shield the doctor, and 20 influential persons.

Although the girl had complained of "slight bleeding (from the vagina) and burning", the gynaecologist who examined her said there was no evidence of rape and that her hymen was intact. However, some "slight whitish collection" was found over the labia. 

Chelawat alleged that the girl was examined by the gynaecologist of the local medical college, where the accused is a lecturer in surgery. He alleged that the gynaecologist gave a "false" medical report to shield the accused. The girl, he contended, should have been properly examined, by a medical board because a senior doctor was involved in the case.

Filing his case on December 8, 1977, Chelawat said that although the incident took place on November 24, the police had not taken any action and had failed to question the accused. Some police officials he charged, were adopting dilly-dallying tactics and trying to suppress the case.

The police denied this and said that action was delayed because there were discrepancies in the statements of the girl and her father and the case was under investigation.

 In November 1977, Sajjan Singh, a businessman from Rajasthan, lodged a report with the Police that his 19-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted by Dr K. L. Bandi in a private nursing home in Indore. The girl had been admitted to the nursing home for a minor surgical treatment. The next day, however, the father withdrew his complaint saying that he did not want to proceed further with the case.

Since the medical report was "negative", the case would have been closed had it not been for Chelawat's complaint.

Eventually, Dr Bandi was arrested last May six months after the alleged incident and later released on a bail of Rs. 10,000 and a personal bond of an equal amount on the orders of the Madhya Pradesh High Court which asked him not to leave the state without its permission.

The District and Sessions Judge had earlier refused the anticipatory bail sought by the doctor. 

The soft-spoken and handsome doctor, happily married and proud father of two kids, refused to comment on the case as it was "sub-judice", "Let the truth come out in the court", he told me. However, They gave broad indications of a plot against him and said that he had been falsely implicated in the case. In answer to a question, he said that the police had not questioned him up to 10 now although the Chalan had been submitted in the Court.

In a statement to the police, Dr Gokuladas, in whose nursing home the alleged incident took place, said "professional rivalry" was behind the complaint and Dr Bandi's opponents had tried to defame him. He also alleged that some journalists had approached him intending to blackmail him.

The Current

July 15, 1978