Doctor rape-murder case: Kolkata police issue summons to TMC MP after he demands CBI grilling of top cop

Kolkata: The Kolkata Police on Sunday summoned Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, a Trinamool Congress member of the Rajya Sabha, to its headquarters after he questioned the way the cops dealt with the rape and murder of a doctor at a hospital and suggested that the Central Bureau of Investigation should arrest the city police commissioner.

The ruling party led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also recently removed another leader, Shantanu Sen, a former member of the Lok Sabha, from the post of its spokesperson after he spoke about rampant irregularities and mismanagement at the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital (RGKMCH), where the young postgraduate trainee was recently found dead.  

 The Kolkata Police also summoned Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former parliamentarian, Locket Chatterjee, along with two eminent doctors – Dr Kunal Sarkar and Dr Subarna Goswami – as well as over 50 others for revealing the identity of the victim and for posting misleading information on social media about the rape and the murder of the young doctor and the investigation into the crime.

“It would have been better if they had shown the same promptness while investigating the case. Everyone wants justice for the girl,” Chatterjee said on Sunday.

Several doctors of the city are likely to take out a procession and accompany Dr Sarkar and Dr Goswami when they will go to the police headquarters on Monday along with their lawyers.

Minakshi Mukherjee, the state secretary of the CPI (M)’s youth wing, and six other leaders of the party were also summoned by Kolkata Police for questioning in connection with the vandalism at the RGKMCH during the ‘Reclaim the Night’ protest against the killing of the young doctor on August 14-15.

The cops so far arrested at least 25 people in connection with the vandalism.

As the outrage over the rape and murder of the doctor at a hospital in Kolkata has put the Trinamool Congress in a tight spot, some voices within the ruling party itself started striking a discordant note, criticising either the authorities of the hospital, run by the West Bengal government, or the city police.

Banerjee accused the BJP and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) of politicising the crime, fomenting unrest, and trying to destabilise the TMC government in the state. After the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over the probe from the Kolkata Police, the ruling party also took to the streets to counter the allegations of the BJP and the CPI(M) that the state government failed to ensure the safety and security of women.

Roy, the TMC MP, posted on X that the CBI must take Vineet Goyal, the commissioner of Kolkata Police, and Sandip Ghosh, who was removed from the post of RGKMCH principal after the incident, into custody and interrogate them to know who had floated the theory of suicide and why.

Ghosh has been repeatedly questioned by the CBI for hours since Friday but has not been arrested. After the body of the young doctor was found at the seminar hall of the RGKMCH’s Department of Chest Medicine on August 9, Ghosh allegedly asked an assistant superintendent of the college to inform her parents that she had died by suicide.

“Why (was the) wall of (the) hall demolished, who patronised (Sanjay) Roy to be so powerful? Why (was the) sniffer dog used after 3 days? 100s of such questions. Make them (Ghosh and Goyal) speak,” Roy posted on X.

The Kolkata Police already stated that the scene of the crime remained ‘intact’ even after the vandalism at the RGKMCH by a gang of goons in the early hours of August 15. The cops also said that the sniffer dogs had been sent to the scene immediately after the recovery of the body on August 9 and then again on August 12.  

Sanjay Roy, who was arrested by Kolkata Police for raping and murdering the doctor, has been a civic volunteer (a contractual employee of the law-enforcing agency). He was a frequent visitor to the RGKMCH, was allegedly very influential, and had links with the rackets that extorted money from patients to ensure admission to the hospital.