The morning of June 13, 2023, Pranab Kundu, 65, got off the Saraighat Express at the Coochbehar railway station. A distance of six minutes away, lying on a stone slab, was the body of his 24-year-old daughter, an MBBS student at the Maharaja Jitendra Narayan Medical College and Hospital.

The death at the Coochbehar teaching hospital, established in 2018, happened more than a year before the rape and murder of a 31-year-old postgraduate trainee doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Calcutta. The nature of death in the cases appear to be different. But the parents of the girl who died in Coochbehar also have some questions they know they will never get the answers for.

Kundu has little doubt that his youngest daughter died by suicide, but the questions have bothered him since he cremated her in the district headquarter town around 704 km north of Calcutta.

“If she was found in the morning, why did the principal wait for six hours to inform me? When I was on the way to Coochbehar, a police officer from the Coochbehar Kotwali called me and asked if they could proceed with the post-mortem,” said Kundu. “I was surprised. I asked, how could the post-mortem be performed in our absence? Does the law allow this?”

The cops did wait till the next morning, when the victim’s family arrived.

On June 12, Kundu was informed around noon that his daughter had died by suicide.

“My daughter used a room on the top floor of the hostel where she studied from 11.30pm till about 4-4.30 in the morning, after which she would return to her room on the first floor,” Kundu told The Telegraph Online from his residence near the Police Lines in Burdwan.

That night, the 24-year old did not return. Her roommate, alarmed by the sight of the empty bed, went upstairs. The room was locked from inside. When a security guard broke it open, she was found hanging. Around 10.30 pm, that night, the young woman spoke with her parents and her elder sister. The day before, the elder sister had transferred Rs 4,572 to her account to pay for her semester fees. June 12 was the last date.

“The night she died, she was crying and told my elder daughter that she was feeling sad for us. Then she hung up saying she had to get back to her studies,” the heartbroken father said.

Kundu said though he saw his daughter lying on the slab with her fair face covered with a green hue, he could not stay at the morgue where the post-mortem was eventually done.

“I did not lodge any complaint of foul play. I have limited resources and I realised that the police and the hospital administration were working together, like they had something to hide,” said Kundu, who runs a sweet shop.

“My daughter was close to four other girls, two from Rajasthan, one from Bihar’s Sitamarhi and another one from Birbhum’s Rampurhat. I wanted to speak with them and try to understand what led her to take this step. But the college authorities did not allow us,” he said.

Some days later, the Coochbehar police returned the mobile phone and tab that belonged to the 24-year-old.

The last message from her phone was sent to the medical student from Rampurhat. According to the father, it read: “I am sorry for my behaviour.”

“A month later I informed the principal that I will be in Coochbehar to collect my daughter’s belongings. I requested him to arrange for these girls to be present and questioned by the investigating officer. The girls never showed up.

“I still don’t know why my girl decided to end her life,” Kundu said. “I could not file a case since I didn’t have the means to get into a legal battle. And against whom would I have filed the case? The college? The cops?. They were the ones who conducted the probe. What justice could they have given me,” said Kundu.

“I do not want any other parent to go through what I have to, every day for the rest of my life.”

The father said that since her admission the previous year, his daughter had complained several times about the standard of education at the new medical college.

“She would say classes are not held on time, -students copied from their mobile phones during exams. She was not into it and was afraid that she would not be able to clear the semester. I could understand she gradually went into depression, and focused entirely on her studies. She was unhappy there. If something else was bothering her, we do not know,” Kundu said.

Dr Nirmal Kumar Mandal, principal, MJN Medical College and Hospital, told The Telegraph Online that an internal inquiry was conducted after the death, based on which some steps have been taken, like opening a portal where students experiencing mental health problems could raise their concerns and opt for counselling.

“Police investigated the case, but we don’t know what they found out,” Mandal said. “I had a detailed discussion with her father after the incident. He told me that she was having some problems, but we never got to know any of it.

“If the students do not come to us it is difficult for us to take any step,” the principal said. “There could have been an immediate trigger that led her to such a decision. We are trying to be more cautious now.”

Still uncertain about what happened to his daughter, Kundu is certain about one thing: the outcome of the probe into the rape and murder of the postgraduate trainee doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

“Nothing will come of it. The real perpetrators will go scot free. They will never be apprehended. It is the system that needs to be changed and politics needs to be completely segregated from education,” he said.

Among the other things that the gruesome crime at RG Kar has unearthed is the ring of corruption around Bengal’s medical colleges and the “threat culture” that prevails. Even the three-member Supreme Court bench hearing the case is aware of it.