The verdict in the August 9 rape and murder of a junior doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, an atrocity that had churned Bengal society and politics and grabbed national spotlight, was delivered on Saturday with the lone accused pronounced guilty.
The Sealdah court will sentence former civic volunteer Sanjay Roy on Monday.
Going by the charges he has been convicted of, the lightest punishment Roy can expect is life in prison; the harshest is death.
After being told he had been found guilty, Roy began pleading with folded hands in a packed courtroom. Had he committed the crime, he argued, his necklace of rudraksha beads would have been torn in the scuffle.
“I have been framed. Why are the others involved not punished? An IPS officer knows everything,” he almost shouted.
The additional district and sessions judge, Sealdah, Anirban Das, cut him short and repeated what he had said earlier: that Roy would get a chance to speak on Monday before the sentencing.
Later, invited by the judge to comment, the victim’s parents expressed their satisfaction “at the role played bythe court”.
The brutal crime had led to weeks of cease-work and a hunger strike by junior doctors, a “reclaim the night” movement by women seeking freedom from fear and harassment, allegations of a larger conspiracy behind the rape-murder and multiple assailants, charges of a cover-up against the hospital authorities and the state government, and claims of a “threat culture” in hospitals.
It led to a cornered state government holding public talks with the agitating medics and announcing measures to upgrade hospital security. The government also earned a rap from the Supreme Court for its purported mollycoddling of then RG Kar principal Sandip Ghosh, whose role in the matter had comeunder scrutiny.
Judge Das appeared to have some of this mind when he said the 160-odd-page judgment, to be completed on Monday, would “criticise” certain actions of the police and the hospital.
Judge Das said he had been left “confused” by some of the things done by the then “HOD (head of the department), the MSVP (medical superintendent and vice-principal) and the principal” of the hospital.
When The Telegraph asked the victim’s father outside the courtroom if he was really satisfied with the verdict, he said: “I am happy to the extent that the judge has in his order criticised the role of the police and the hospital authorities. He also said that some of the acts of the MSVP and the then principal had caused him confusion. We got what we wanted.”
Reacting to Roy’s claims of innocence in court, the judge said the evidence submitted by the CBI had led to the conclusion of his guilt.
“Shasti apnake pete hobe. Ki shasti, sheta shombar janano hobe (You will have to face punishment. In what form, we’ll let you know on Monday),” Das told Roy.
The convict was heard complaining about not being allowed to speak on Saturday. Shortly afterwards, he was whisked out of the courtroom.
The judge will hear Roy in court at 12.30pm on Monday and announce the punishment in the second half (after 2pm).
CBI lawyer Partha Sarathi Dutta said the prosecution would seek “the highest punishment”.
Roy’s lawyers, Kabita Sarkar and Senjuthi Banerjee, said they would challenge the verdict before a higher court.
Police, and later the CBI, had nailed Roy on the basis of a Bluetooth earphone they claimed had been found at the crime scene. He was also seen in CCTV footage close to the site around the time of the crime.
Roy has been found guilty on three counts — murder, rape and causing death or a persistent vegetative state to a woman.
As he stood in the dock, the judge read out to him the sections under which he had been found guilty and the maximum and minimum punishments they carried.
Judge Das said he had divided the judgment into sub-heads such as the profile of the victim, the profile of the accused, the duty hours of the victim, when the victim was last seen alive, when and where she was found dead, who discovered the body, the cause of death, the time of death, evidence of sexual assault, whether there was a single assailant or a group, who committed the crime, the place of occurrence and the mobile tower location of the accused.
He said some 35-odd questions had been placed on behalf of the victim’s parents, and he had tried to answer them in the judgment.
CBI officers attached to the case said they were confident about the verdict. “We had a watertight case. We had tried our best to pay attention to the minutest of things that could help us nail the accused,” an officer said.
Sources in the agency said that “when the time comes”, they would also move against two other accused, former RG Kar principal Ghosh and the then officer in charge of the local Tala police station, Abhijit Mandal.
The central agency had arrested the duo on charges of causing the disappearance of evidence and a larger conspiracy. Both obtained bail after the CBI failed to submit a supplementary chargesheet against them within 90 days of their arrest.