Friday, 03 January 2025
Friday, 03 January 2025
The year 2024 was the year of protests for Bengal, sparked by the alleged rape and murder of a 31-year old postgraduate trainee doctor at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9.
As the protests continue over the alleged “tardy progress” made in the investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation, the year ends with more questions than answers into one of the most gruesome crimes in recent history in Kolkata.
A day after the victim’s body was found in the seminar room on the third floor of the emergency building of the hospital, the Kolkata Police’s special investigation team then investigating the crime arrested a civic volunteer, Sanjay Roy.
Nearly five months after the incident, Roy remains the only person arrested and with a chargesheet drawn against him in the case, though the family and several members of the medical community refuse to believe the crime was committed by one person.
A list of the CCTV footage that the CBI had received from the hospital authorities reveals that among the people seen entering and emerging in that floor on that fateful night, except for Roy none of the others could be identified, reliable sources told The Telegraph Online.
The CBI had prepared the list on August 19 after going through the footage received from camera 8 installed at the northern wall of the male ward of the department of respiratory medicine at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on the third floor of the emergency building covering the entrance to the pulmonary medicine department.
The footage contained in four files covers the hours from 2.35 am to 2.43 am in the first file, 3.06 am to 3.58am in the second file, 4.00 am to 4.57am in the third file and from 5.01 am to 5.51 am in the fourth file.
The civic volunteer Roy was caught on camera at 4.03am “wearing T-shirt and jeans and holding a helmet in his left hand and earphones around his neck moving from right side of the camera to the ward”.
Two minutes later another male, who “could not be identified”, was seen moving towards the ward clad in a T-shirt and jeans.
At 4.31am, Roy appears on the camera walking towards it before taking a turn and back to the ward again. Less than a minute later, he is seen again walking out of the ward with the helmet in his hand but without the Bluetooth earphones – that was the only clue that the Kolkata Police had that led to his arrest.
Seven minutes after Roy, a woman was seen in the footage clad in a white salwar with a white mask covering her face, emerging out of the ward. She was followed by a male wearing a red-T shirt, black pants and white mask on his face. He came out of the ward, then turned and went inside again.
It is not clear whether these two males were later seen exiting the ward, though a number of other people including women were seen in the footage.
The former principal of the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, Sandip Ghosh, along with the former officer-in-charge of Tala police station were granted bail by a local court as the CBI could not file the chargesheet against them in the stipulated 90 days period. The CBI has alleged the duo had tampered with evidence but has not been able to substantiate the charge.
Ghosh remains in custody as he is also accused in alleged financial irregularities at the hospital during his tenure.
Soon after the rape and murder came to light, chief minister Mamata Banerjee had Ghosh transferred to the Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital but he was forced to step down following strictures from Calcutta high court, which ordered a CBI probe into the rape-murder as well as the corruption at RG Kar.
“It is quite evident that the CBI is not investigating the case properly,” the RG Kar victim’s father told The Telegraph Online on Monday.
“How could so many people remain unidentified? Ask the CBI why they have not yet been able to identify who these people were and what they were doing at the hospital at that hour,” he said when informed about the footage.
The victim’s parents had knocked the doors of Calcutta high court last week seeking a fresh probe into their daughter’s killing.
They had expressed lack of faith in the central probe agency.
They were directed to speak to the Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice of India Sanjeev Khanna.
The apex court has scheduled the next hearing of the case in March next year. Lawyer Vrinda Grover, who was earlier representing the family, has stepped down.
The junior doctors, too, are unhappy with the CBI.
“We are obviously questioning what the CBI is doing. We are still in the process of discussing as to how to continue our movement and what to do further but there is a lot of confusion,” said Sayan Mandal, an intern at the Midnapore Medical College and one of the regulars at the protests held in Calcutta and elsewhere.
So, did the RG Kar protests fail? Dr Aniket Mahato, a student of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital who was a prominent face of the agitation, disagreed.
“The movement has not ended,” Mahato told The Telegraph Online. “No movement is ever a failure and this action from our part was very much required. We are still continuing our movement in different forms and there are conventions taking place in different parts of the state to inform people as to what happened on August 9, the story as far as we know.
“When a person boils water, it is not the same in the beginning, once it reaches 100c it starts boiling and after 5 mins the situation is again different; the same is the case with our movement. It is all about time and it changes, it is not that the movement has to be continued with rallies and speeches all the time. If the CBI continues to work like this, it is very well understood that it is difficult for us to get justice ever, we have lost our trust in the agency.”
He added: “This movement was required and it will continue. A girl was raped and murdered. We protested as humans and this was correct. If tomorrow the same happens with someone else what will we say, that this should continue to happen? What we are missing is one point: Who are the people who are trying to save the culprits so much?”
