RG Kar incident accused Sanjay Roy.
Credit: PTI Photo
Kolkata: Seven weeks after it took over the probe into the rape and murder of a doctor at a hospital in Kolkata, the Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday filed a charge sheet at a local court, accusing only the man whom the city police had arrested just a day after the incident.
The CBI, which had taken over the probe from the Kolkata Police on August 14, filed a charge sheet in a special court in the city, naming Sanjay Roy as the only prime accused. The central agency did not name anyone else in the charge sheet filed on Monday. Neither did it accuse Roy of being involved in gang-rape, indicating that the investigation so far did not find any evidence of the crime being committed by more than one person.
Roy, a member of the contractual support staff of the Kolkata Police, was arrested by the city cops a day after the postgraduate trainee doctor had been found raped and murdered inside the seminar room of the Department of Chest Medicine on the third floor of the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata on August 9.
The Calcutta High Court, hearing a petition filed by the parents of the victim, had on August 13 ordered the CBI to take over the probe. The Kolkata Police handed over Roy to the central agency a day later. He was sent to judicial custody on August 23.
The outrage triggered by the incident had also renewed the focus on allegations of corruption and financial irregularities at the RGKMCH. The Calcutta High Court had on August 23 asked the CBI to probe the allegations of corruption. The agency’s Anti-Corruption Bureau had on September 2 arrested a few others, including Sandip Ghosh, who was the principal of the medical college when the young doctor was raped and murdered, for financial misconduct.
Ghosh had also been arrested by the CBI on September 2 for allegedly trying to cover up the crime and tampering with evidence.
The central agency had also arrested Abhijit Mondal, who was the officer-in-charge of Tala Police Station that was first informed after the doctor had been found raped and murdered. Mandal was arrested for allegedly delaying the lodging of the First Information Report, destruction of evidence, and misleading the investigation in the case.
But Ghosh and Mondal were not named as accused in the charge sheet filed by the CBI on Monday.
The rape and murder of the young medic triggered widespread outrage, with not only her colleagues but also the senior doctors, film and theatre personalities, cultural icons, civil society activists as well as common people from all sections of the society taking to the streets demanding justice for the 31-year-old. The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) also launched agitations across the state, putting the ruling Trinamool Congress in a tight spot.
Citing the charge sheet filed by the CBI, Kunal Ghosh, a senior leader of the TMC, however, sought to turn the table on the critics of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s government. He pointed out that the CBI named only Roy, who had been arrested by Kolkata Police, in its charge sheet. “Please accept now that the probe by the Kolkata Police was on the right track,” Ghosh posted on X.
The junior doctors of West Bengal had launched a cease-work stir after the rape and murder of their colleague at the RGKMCH. They returned to work a few days after the chief minister had accepted their demands for the removal of Vineet Goyal, who, as the commissioner of Kolkata Police, had allegedly failed to ensure a proper investigation into the rape and murder of the young doctor before the CBI had taken over the probe. Banerjee had also removed two more officials from the Department of Health and Family Welfare of the state government given the allegations of rampant corruption, irregularities, and financial misconduct.
The junior doctors had on October 1 resumed the cease work stir but again called it off last Friday. They decided to continue the agitation, with six of them going on a fast-unto-death at the heart of the capital city since Saturday. Two more joined the fast-unto-death stir on Sunday.
Apart from an expeditious probe into the rape and murder of the young doctor and the safety and security of the healthcare workers, the protesting medics also demanded elections for student councils immediately in every medical college, recognition of the Resident Doctors' Association, and representation of students and junior doctors in all committees managing colleges and hospitals.