Delhi gynaecologist gets life imprisonment for killing her minor twins with anaesthesia overdose

Delhi: A gynaecologist, Dr Roopa Singh, previously attached to a government hospital in the capital reportedly been sentenced life term by the Delhi Court after the court found her guilty for fatally injecting her minor twins with anaesthesia and an attempt to commit suicide. The accused had pleaded temporary insanity arising from depression for the crime.

The incident goes back to the year 2009, when the gynaecologist after having an argument with her doctor husband over her plan of setting her own nursing home, checked into a hotel with her daughters. At the hotel, she injected her daughters with anaesthesia (Sucol injection) and then tried to commit suicide by injecting herself with the same medicine.

TOI reports that in a groggy state while under the influence of the injection, she phoned her husband who he rushed to the location and found his wife unconscious and the twins dead. The twins were rushed to a Max Hospital where they were declared brought dead.Dr Singh was a senior resident at Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar Hospital in Rohini at that time.

Before the court, Public prosecutor Pankaj Ranga, seeking capital punishment for the doctor claimed that Singh injected her twin daughters with the anaesthetic substance in the hotel fully aware that it was fatal for them. He said the accused then injected herself with the same medicine with the intention to kill herself. The prosecution sought capital punishment on the ground of the victims’ tender age and because the mother had shown no mercy

The defence case was that the woman was overburdened with work. Singh’s counsel cited the discharge certificated after her release from hospital that mentioned she was suffering from depression. The defence also admitted into evidence the statement of a senior mental health expert who opined that the doctor must have been suffering from severe depression in the period at least a week prior to the killing of her daughters. Besides, the defence counsel pointed out, the accused had four-year-old daughter and no previous criminal record, reports TOI.

After going through the submissions, additional sessions judge Pawan Kumar Matto  “I hold the accused Dr Singh guilty of the murders of baby Tanya and Twinkle by way of repeatedly injecting Sucol and such act of commission of murder or attempt to commit suicide cannot be justified after any such altercation at home of the accused.”

“Courts must not only keep in view the rights of the criminals, but also the rights of the victims of crime and the society at large while considering the imposition of appropriate punishment,” the judge noted.

The court also held that it was not a rarest of rare cases considering the ages of the victims, but ordered, “Convict is sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life under Section 302 and is also directed to pay a fine of Rs 30,000...She is also sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and fine of Rs 5,000 under Section 309.”