The Hindu : New Delhi News : AIIMS student's father lodges complaint in suicide case

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 13, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

AIIMS student's father lodges complaint in suicide case

By Bindu Shajan Perappadan

NEW DELHI, FEB. 12. Nearly eight months after his son Rachit Gupta, student in the Neuro-Surgery Department of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) committed suicide allegedly by injecting himself with a muscle relaxant, the father is still trying to piece together just what went wrong with his son.

While those at AIIMS have told him that his son had complex psychological problems, the police, he claims, are yet to give him his son's diary that holds the key to the traumatic sequence of events leading to the suicide by the young doctor. Unable to take the ``suspense and the mud-slinging'', Rachit's father, M.M. Gupta, has finally filed a formal complaint with the Defence Colony police against two senior doctors for harassment leading to suicide by his son.

Mr. Gupta said: ``It is not a knee-jerk reaction, neither do I want any revenge. Even when there was yet another suicide attempt in the same department, I did not react in a negative manner. But when the faculty members started spreading stories about my son having complex psychological problems to protect the Institute, I could not keep quiet. The mud slinging and the bad name that my son has got from AIIMS has hurt me terribly and I can't keep quiet any more."

Speaking about the non co-operation of the police, Mr. Gupta added that in his complaint he has also mentioned that his son's diary that gives an account of the harassment had not been handed over to him yet.

"I have been told that even a fast track enquiry was held after the media made a noise about the second case in the same department. I wasn't even asked about my son's condition, his friends were not consulted before the final enquiry report was submitted. He was finally made out to be some kind of a patient who was under depression who could not take on the stress and thus committed suicide," complained Mr. Gupta.

Mr. Gupta also claimed that his son had been in fact mis-diagnosed at the Institute for depression while his real ailment was narcolepsy, a sleep disorder. "It is true that Rachit had not told us about the extent of harassment that he was undergoing at the Institution. Though he kept telling us that there were problems, we never really knew that the situation was so bad," said Rachit's father.

Now having filed a police complaint, Mr. Gupta maintained that revenge was not his motive, "I just don't want another Rachit happening here. Besides that I want the family to be left alone with good memories of him. Rachit's mother, who had a heart stent fixed from the Institute, now refuses to go back to the hospital for any treatment. The case has broken our spirit."

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