Preliminary enquiry to report in seven days, further departmental review pending
Dr Rajesh Dere, the accused
BMC has moved ahead with a preliminary enquiry set up against Dr Rajesh Dere, accused of driving over a 60-year-old woman leading to her eventual death at BMC’s Sion hospital, which will be headed by Joint Commissioner Milin Sawant. He remained unavailable for comment. However, the report of the enquiry is expected in the next seven days. BMC Commissioner Bhushan Gagrani said, “There will also be a departmental enquiry to look into the lapses, if any, on the part of Dr Dere in the aftermath of the incident.”
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The incident took place last Friday, however, Dr Dere was taken into custody 24 hours later. Initially, Dr Dere and the Dean of Sion hospital Dr Mohan Joshi had been insisting it was a heart attack. “The departmental enquiry will also determine why was this the case,” Gagrani said. Dr Dere was transferred to Nair hospital from Sion on Tuesday. “We transferred him to remove him from what can be termed as the scene of the crime,” Gagrani said.
However, when mid-day spoke with a few medical staff at Nair hospital, they claimed that there is a sense of unfairness for having to work with someone accused of causing death due to negligence and further of misleading the authorities at the time of the incident. When confronted Gagrani with the perception around his transfer, he said, “These are baseless claims. If he wouldn’t have been transferred, people would’ve said why is he still there.”
May 24
Day of the accident