Sunday, 19 January 2025
Sunday, 19 January 2025
Three people broke down inside court room number 210 at the Sealdah court in Kolkata on Saturday afternoon.
The first two were the parents of the 31-year-old postgraduate trainee of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital who was brutally raped and murdered on the intervening night of August 8 and 9.
The third was the sole accused in the case, Sanjay Roy, a civic volunteer of the Kolkata Police, who was arrested a day after the rape and murder by the same Kolkata Police.
Immediately after pronouncing his verdict, Anirban Das, the presiding judge of court number 210 in the Sealdah Sessions’ court, asked the convict if he had anything to add.
Clad in an orange hoodie over a grey jacket, Roy pointed to a band of rudraksh seeds around his neck, Roy asked the judge if he could commit such a crime wearing the sacred band.
“I have been framed. I am innocent. I have this sacred band around my neck. With that on me how can I commit such a crime? If I had committed such a crime the band would have broken. I did as the senior police officers instructed me,” Roy claimed from the dock.
From the time that Roy, the prime and so far only accused in the case, was brought amid tight security from the Presidency correctional home’s cell number six, where he has been incarcerated since August 10, he claimed to be innocent.
When the court opened after 2pm, Roy continued to claim he was innocent.
Seated in the court room filled to the rafters with lawyers, medicos, mediapersons and curious onlookers, the victim’s parents were in tears as Roy continued to claim his innocence.
After Judge Das banged the gavel and rose from his seat, he heard the loud sobs of the parents who wanted to say a few words to the deliverer of justice.
“We had reposed our faith in you. You have given us some solace,” the father of the victim told the judge.
To both the parties – Roy as well as the victim’s parents – Judge Das said he would hear them before announcing the quantum of punishment on Monday.
Roy, who was whisked away from the court to the Presidency correctional home a little after 3pm, will be produced in court again on Monday.
Inside the courtroom, Roy strained his voice to be heard by the judge. The police had to drag him out from the courtroom to the court lock-up seeing his insistence on being heard after being declared guilty in the most shocking crime in Calcutta in recent memory that had ignited waves of protest like never before against the Mamata Banerjee government.
The prolonged investigation for five months by the CBI took just 12 minutes to wrap up on Sunday afternoon.
After announcing the verdict, the judge said Roy could face the death penalty (the maximum punishment) or be sentenced for life (the minimum punishment).
Addressing the prisoner, Judge Das said on the wee hours of August 9, Roy had entered the RG Kar Hospital’s emergency building – on the third floor of which is the chest department’s seminar hall where the body was found in the morning – attacked a female physician, strangled her and assaulted her sexually.
Roy was caught on CCTV cameras installed in the building entering the seminar hall with a Bluetooth headphone on him, which was later found on the same mattress where the victim was found.
The CBI charged Roy under Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS) sections 64 (punishment for rape), 66 (punishment for causing death) and 103 (punishment for murder).
The judge said the evidence produced by the CBI – which had started the probe on the orders of the Calcutta high court – was compelling enough.
Though he had reportedly confessed to the crime soon after his arrest, Roy had later claimed that he was forced to sign a confession by the cops.
The judge iterated that the evidence was enough to pronounce him guilty, and added that the punishment would be read out on Monday.
In the tears of the middle-class couple from a locality near Calcutta were five months of pain, grief, anxiety, heartbreak – and also a deep mistrust for the justice delivery system of the country.
The victim’s parents have been expressing their dissatisfaction with the CBI probe that took five months. They have also knocked on the doors of the Calcutta high court.
They insist – and their daughter’s colleagues, the junior doctors of Bengal, agree – that several questions remain unanswered in the case.
The CBI has not been able to submit the chargesheet against the former principal of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital Sandip Ghosh and Abhijeet Mondal, the former officer-in-charge of Tala police station, whom the agency has accused of conspiracy and tampering of evidence.
As the investigation progressed, the parents had expressed doubts whether the crime could have been committed by only one person. In a petition filed before the Calcutta high court, they had alleged that others involved in the crime were being shielded while Roy was being projected as the sole accused in the case.
Outside the court talking to the media on Saturday, the victim’s mother said she would carry on the fight to punish the others guilty of killing her daughter.
“That Sanjay is guilty was proved through biological evidence. And that he stood silent during the trials in the court also proved his role in torturing and killing my daughter. But he was not alone, there are others who have not been arrested yet. So justice hasn’t been delivered,” she said.
“The case is not complete. It will only be completed after the others who were involved in killing our daughter are punished. We will wait for that day. Till that day [comes], we will not be able to sleep. That is the only thing we want now.”
