Afraid of losing son to disease, doc kills self

A Borivli-based doctor, who could not bear the thought of his son dying of kidney disease, committed suicide by jumping off the terrace of a building on Monday.

Dr Harish Dabhoya’s son Gunjan, 24, was on dialysis for the last year. The father would take Gunjan to Hinduja Hospital thrice a week for treatment. Dr Dabhoya, 55, was supposed to donate a kidney to his son on September 15, but doctors told him there was no guarantee of a cure. “This made Harish go into severe depression,” said Shekhar, Dr Dabhoya’s brother.

After Gunjan’s condition worsened on Friday, he was admitted to Hinduja. “On Sunday night, my brother (Dr Dabhoya) was talking to his wife Tejaswani, 50, and son. Suddenly, Gunjan started coughing uncontrollably, which made my brother tense. He then left for his clinic,” Shekhar said.

Dr Dabhoya went to Borivli’s Panchratna Building, where his clinic is situated, and jumped off the sixth floor at around 12.30am on Monday. “His wife’s calls on his mobile phone remained unanswered. Residents of the building told her about his suicide,” said police inspector Bharat Gire of the Borivli police station.

Tejaswani is the stepmother of Gunjan, who lost his mother to kidney failure when he was a kid. Shekhar said Gunjan recently got a degree in dental medicine and was about to start his own clinic.