Nearly three months after a 22-year-old woman doctor was stabbed to death by a patient at the Kottarakkara taluk hospital in Kerala's Kollam district, the Crime Branch probe team submitted a chargesheet against the accused Sandeep at the Kottarakkara Chief Judicial Magistrate Court on Tuesday, August 1. Contrary to the defence’s claims that the murder wasn’t intentional and that Sandeep was in a disturbed mental state when he committed the crime, the chargesheet has stated that the murder which took place on May 10 was indeed a deliberate act.
The 11-member investigation team has incorporated more than hundred witness statements and incriminating evidence against the accused in the chargesheet. The testimonials include those from the hospital staff who were on duty at the time of the incident, the police officers who had brought Sandeep to the hospital for treatment, and the security personnel deployed at the hospital among others. The probe team has also urged the court to complete the trial as soon as possible.
Last week, on July 27, the Kollam Principal Sessions Court had denied bail to Sandeep after observing that there was prima facie evidence to slap murder charges on the accused. His lawyer had claimed at the time that Sandeep had the right to receive bail because he was not in a conscious state of mind when he committed the crime. The defence also argued that he was facing mental health issues due to alcohol withdrawal. The probe team, however, has stated that Sandeep is not showing any signs of mental instability at the moment.
Sandeep, a 42-year-old school teacher, was brought to the hospital by the police after he contacted them for help claiming that he had been attacked by neighbours and relatives. A nurse, who was an eye-witness to the crime, said that Sandeep went out of the procedure room after she finished dressing his wounds and began attacking people including police officials with a pair of surgical scissors. Dr Vandana Das, who hailed from Kottayam, was fatally injured after Sandeep attacked her with the scissors. According to the postmortem report, Vandana was stabbed 26 times and the cause of death was internal organ damage due to fatal wounds inflicted by surgical scissors on the chest.