Rajkot : Doctor booked for raping nurse for a year

Rajkot: A doctor has been booked for repeatedly raping a 21-year-old nurse for the past one year at his hospital. Police booked Dr Pankaj Vekariya for the crime on the complaint of the nurse on Friday night.

The nurse lodged a complaint against Dr Vekariya, in whose hospital she got admitted when she tried to end her life by consuming poison. In her complaint, the nurse alleged that after she joined Dr Vekariya’s Sanjivani Hospital a year ago, the doctor proposed to have friendship with her, which she accepted.

“Dr Vekariya claimed that he was a bachelor and that he wanted to marry her. One day, he called the nurse in the ICU between 4 pm and 5 pm and tried to have physical relationship with her. When she protested, the doctor said as he had already decided to marry her, there shouldn’t be any problem in having intimate relationship. Despite her protest, Dr Vekariya raped the nurse,” an official from the Mahila police station, where the case in this regard has been registered, said.

After that incident, Dr Vekariya started raping her frequently. When she used to protest, he would threaten of not marrying her. When the nurse became pregnant seven months ago, Dr Vekariya took her to Krishna Hospital, where he and his friend identified as KK got her fetus aborted. She again became pregnant five months ago and Dr Vekariya forced her to undergo abortion one more time.

“Later when the nurse asked Dr Vekariya to marry her, he offered to sign ‘Maitri Karar’ (friendship agreement) and said he would marry her soon. Meanwhile, the nurse found out that Dr Vekariya was already married. When she confronted the doctor on this issue, Dr Vekariya told her to leave the job. But after her father’s intervention — who told Dr Vekariya to keep his daughter — the nurse was kept at the hospital, where she insisted on signing ‘Maitri-Karar’, which Dr Vekariya refused. Depressed, the nurse tried to hang herself, but was saved by neighbouring shopkeepers at the hospital. When Dr Vekariya came to know about this, he told her father to take her away. But the nurse again consumed poison and was hospitalized,” a police official said.

Dr Vekariya has been booked under Sections 376, 313 and 114 of the Indian Penal Code.