Bhubaneswar/Cuttack, Nov. 7: Orissa High Court today directed the state government to submit a status report on the ongoing crime branch probe into the death of ayurvedic doctor Madhabilata Pradhan within two weeks.
The railway police have already alluded a love angle to the mysterious death.
The division bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.K. Mishra issued notices to the government while hearing a petition filed by the deceased’s brother, Nilakantha Pradhan, seeking a CBI probe into the death.
Madhabilata, an ayurvedic doctor at Kanas community health centre in Puri, was supposed to be transferred. On October 12, her family members had lodged a missing report with the local police. On the same day, the railway police recovered her body from the tracks at Malatipatpur.
But the family members got to know about her death only October 26. Although the railway police claimed that she was buried in Puri, the body was subsequently found missing from the graveyard.
A team of crime branch officials inspected the railway track near Maltipatpur station and the burial ground. They also scrutinised records at the railway outpost and Kumbharpada police station in Puri today.
While the police have been maintaining that she had committed suicide, her family members suspect a foul play and demanded a CBI probe.
“We suspect that she was kidnapped and murdered,” said the deceased’s brother Nilakantha.
The case became more mysterious when Madhabilata’s body was found missing when a team of the State Commission for Women inspected the burial ground last week. Today, the priest of the temple at the burial ground said that a group of people, claiming to the deceased’s relatives, had cremated the body.
The Opposition Congress had alleged that the deceased was forced to commit suicide because of mental trauma after she was transferred on the recommendations of local MLA and ruling BJD youth wing president Sanjay Dasburma.
The government ordered a crime branch probe on Monday following public outcry.
The railway police said that the lady doctor had committed suicide following a failed love affair.
“Her mobile phone records revealed that she had made frequent calls during the last few days and sent an intimate SMS to a married ayurvedic doctor, which was rejected by the latter. Even Madhabilata had spoken to him just before she took the extreme step,” said deputy superintendent of railway police Prakash Jena.
However, the deceased’s family members dismissed the police claim as “false and concocted”. “This was just a ploy by the police to shield the culprits,” said the Nilakantha. He threatened to file a defamation case against the police for maligning his sister.
Nilakantha, in his writ petition, said his sister had gone missing after her visit to the office of the chief district medical officer on October 12. Though the matter was reported at the Kumbharpada police station in Puri on the same day, the police sat over it after registering it as a missing person case. He had also sought direction to recover the body and hand it over to the members of her family.
