Woman doctor jumps off Mumbai's new sea bridge, in 1st suicide

In the first such incident on the newly-built Atal Setu, a 43-year-old woman jumped off the sea bridge connecting south Mumbai to Navi Mumbai, the police said on Wednesday.

The police are yet to locate her body, and have recovered a purported suicide note from her house in Mumbai, an official said.

A Navi Mumbai Police official said on Wednesday night they have sought the help of local fishermen after conducting the search operation for the third consecutive day.

The woman, Kinjal Kantilal Shah, a doctor by profession, had been facing depression and was undergoing treatment, the police said.

She stayed with her father at the Navin Asha building on Dadasaheb Phalke Road in Parel area of Mumbai, the police said.

On Monday afternoon, she took a taxi from near her house and asked the driver to take her to Atal Setu, the police said.

"After a short distance on the sea bridge, the woman started asking the driver to stop the taxi. The driver was reluctant but she insisted, so the driver stopped the vehicle. She got out and jumped off the bridge," said senior police inspector Rajendra Kote of the Nhava Sheva police station.

The driver then informed the Navi Mumbai police, who, with the help of the coastal police, local villagers, and rescuers, began an operation to trace her.

The police said she had called her father on Monday to inform him that she was going out for some work. When her father returned home, he saw her "suicide note", in which she said she was going to Atal Setu to end her life, the official added.

Her father reported the matter at the Bhoiwada police station in Mumbai.

The police then started looking for her, and while scrutinising the CCTV footage, learnt that she boarded a taxi around 1.30 pm on Monday and attempted suicide on the bridge, the official said.

In the note, she cited severe depression spanning eight years as the reason for her decision to end her life by jumping off Atal Setu, the police said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the trans harbour link, the country's longest sea bridge, in January. The sea bridge, named the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Sewri--Nhava Sheva Atal Setu, connects South Mumbai to Navi Mumbai.

According to Navi Mumbai Police, a search was conducted with a speed boat of the Coastal Security Department but in vain.

"The Nhava Sheva Police have been asked to search the bank of the creek and also instruct local fishermen to search for the woman," the official said.

"We used speed boats, private company boats as well as fishermen's boats but the woman's body is not traced," he added.

All fishermen's associations have been informed about the incident and asked to alert the police if they spot the body in the sea or shores.