Surat: Four senior resident doctors have been suspended for six months, and four faculty members handed show-cause notices, following a preliminary Anti-Ragging Committee probe into the suicide of 30-year-old resident doctor Harsh Pandya at Surat New Civil Hospital’s hostel.
The investigation names senior doctor Dikshita Ghevariya as the alleged ringleader. She and several other senior doctors are accused of subjecting ten first-year residents to sustained mental harassment, and among everyone implicated, she’s reportedly singled out as having had the harshest attitude toward the juniors.
Juniors went to the HOD. It went nowhere.
Two days before Harsh died, junior doctors reportedly approached Dr Sumaiya Mulla, the Head of Department, and told her what was happening. No action followed.
By Monday, the group had decided to bypass her and take the complaint straight to the Dean instead. They never got the chance Harsh died by suicide the day before, on Sunday.
Also Read: Doctor Found Dead In Surat Hostel, Four Seniors Suspended Over Harassment Allegations
A full 24 hours on, police reportedly still hadn’t received the CCTV footage. Adding to the questions, documents have surfaced showing the hostel and Microbiology Department servers were taken offline officially for maintenance around the time that footage would have mattered most.
Four faculty members, four notices
- Dr Sumaiya Mulla — notice issued for allegedly taking no action as HOD, despite the ragging reportedly happening openly.
- Dr Sangeeta Rajdev, associate professor — asked to explain why she didn’t act on the ragging.
- Dr Yogita, assistant professor — accused of failing to notice what the student was going through.
- Dr Latika Shah, assistant professor — accused of the same, missing what students were being put through.
A ₹40 lakh bond, and four deaths in seven years
Harsh Pandya was reportedly a quiet, polite man. He’d completed his MBBS in the Philippines, cleared NEET PG, and taken a seat in Microbiology.
The day before he died, he told a fellow doctor he would have left the department long ago if it weren’t for the ₹40 lakh bond. Government rules impose that penalty on anyone who quits a PG course midway — a rule that reportedly left him stuck, financially and mentally, with no real way out.
He’s the fourth. Dr Dhawal died by suicide in 2018, Dr Lokesh in 2024 four resident doctors dead on the Civil Hospital campus in seven years, each case reportedly tied to ragging and mental harassment.
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