Phaltan falls in the Satara district, four hours away from my hometown, Kolhapur. From the endearing colloquialism of ending sentences with ‘ki’ — “vhoye ki (but of course)” — to the small, brick-coloured bungalows, to the swathes of partially cut sugarcane fields, replete with cows grazing in angaans, everything takes me back to the carefree summer vacations of my childhood.

On Tuesday, as we enter the city limits at lunch hour, Phaltan’s air is heavy with drowsiness. Afraid to be lulled into a false sense of safety, I deliberately put my guard up and think about Samrudhi (name changed to protect her identity), a 28-year-old doctor who gave up on life after the entire system failed her. 
In the intervening night of October 23 and 24, Dr Samrudhi checked into a hotel room. She was found dead three hours later, with a note scribbled on her hand in Marathi. The doctor, remembered as “bright, hardworking, and upright” by her friends, had blamed police sub-inspector (PSI) Gopal Badane of sexual assault, and software engineer Prashant Bankar of prolonged mental harassment.