The incident came to light on March 6, when the MDS student did not come out of her bedroom and did not respond to repeated calls from her parents in their home in Antop Hill.
A Mumbai sessions court last week granted bail to a 31-year-old insurance agent, who was arrested for allegedly abetting the suicide of a 24-year-old Master of Dental Surgery (MDS) student last month, noting that the victim’s mental status was disturbed for some reason.
The man, an alleged former boyfriend of the woman, was arrested on March 10 after the police found a purported six-page handwritten suicide note where she allegedly mentioned being insulted by him.
“The accused is behind the bar since 38 days. The remaining pages which were procured from room of deceased are with police along with her second mobile handset. For that purpose, no additional custody to accused is warranted,” special judge G G Bhansali said in the order on April 18.
The court noted that there were multiple points mentioned in the suicide note, including the trips the victim had taken with the accused, the dance reels they made together, their subsequent strained relationship, and that she was not earning from her profession.
“Considering the aforesaid facts, it is necessary to keep in mind the basic principle of bail that bail is a rule and jail is exception,” the court said.
The incident came to light on March 6, when the MDS student did not come out of her bedroom and did not respond to repeated calls from her parents in their home in Antop Hill. The family broke open the door and found her dead. She was pursuing her Master’s in Dental Surgery from a Navi Mumbai college and was also working part-time at BYL Nair Hospital.
The accused had sought bail on the grounds that there is no evidence that he had done any immediate act which could reasonably be said to have driven the victim to die by suicide. “…the entire case is based on the allegation that the deceased was in a romantic relationship with the applicant and that certain words allegedly spoken by the applicant caused emotional distress to the deceased. The prosecution has not alleged any direct act of instigation, provocation or intentional aid attributable to the applicant which compelled the deceased to commit suicide,” the bail plea filed through his lawyer Waqar Pathan said.
The lawyer also told the court that the law is well-settled that in order to constitute an act of abetment of suicide, there must be a clear intention or a positive act of instigation, which the suicide note does not mention, he said.
The prosecution had opposed the plea, stating that the investigation is still in progress. After the grant of bail, certain documents are yet to be scrutinised, and a second handset belonging to the deceased is also to be checked, the prosecution said.
The court said that the accused will be restrained from completing the bail formalities for his release for the next 10 days, following which the bail papers can be processed.
