Officers from the Enforcement Directorate questioned Sudipta Roy, former chairman of the Rogi Kalyan Samity (Patients’ Welfare Committee) at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on Thursday in connection with the probe into alleged financial irregularities at the institution.

Roy was summoned to the ED’s office at the CGO Complex in Salt Lake. He turned up with his daughter who is a doctor.

Officers were questioning Roy, Trinamool Congress MLA from Serampore, also an alumnus of RG Kar, till late on Thursday.

Roy’s questioning at the ED office came within two days of the central agency conducting a search and seizure operation for close to 20 hours at his house and nursing home in Sinthee in the city’s north.

The ED is probing the alleged financial irregularities with the CBI and has conducted search and seizure operations at a bungalow in Dadpur, Hooghly, believed to belong to Roy, apart from his house and nursing home.

Roy said the ED team collected some documents and he was summoned because the officers wanted him to unlock the mobile phones that had been seized.

“I have been paying income tax since 1971. The ED officers have not found any irregularities. They wanted me to be present so I could help them unlock the mobile phones that have been seized,” Roy told reporters before entering the ED office on Thursday.

Sources in the central agency said Roy’s assets came under the scanner after Akhtar Ali, former deputy superintendent of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, flagged concerns about the alleged irregularities by
Roy and Sandip Ghosh, the arrested former principal of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

In a letter to the state vigilance commission on July 14, 2023, Ali said Ghosh and a few others were involved in several corrupt practices. He mentioned Roy in the letter.

Roy is the president of the West Bengal Medical Council, which has show-caused Ghosh over his alleged involvement in the financial irregularities.

The 2023 letter had said: “Misultilisation of Covid funds for creation of gym and furnishing office chamber by procurement revolving executive chair, sofa, dining table, refrigerator etc and I like to inform you that I tried to bring to the notice of the headquarters few months ago ... Sudipta Roy, chairman West Bengal Health Recruitment Board threatened me for termination from job...”

CBI sources said Ghosh had called Roy on the morning of August 9 to inform him about the death of the 31-year-old postgraduate trainee at RG Kar. Roy reached the hospital that morning after receiving the call from Ghosh.

While Roy faced ED interrogators, officers from the CBI questioned Minakshi Mukherjee, state secretary of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), the CPM youth wing.

Minakshi was seen in pictures trying to stop the police hearse carrying the body of the 31-year-old junior doctor while leaving the medical college and hospital on August 9.

Kolkata Police had earlier questioned Minakshi for her alleged involvement in the ransacking and hooliganism at RG Kar on the intervening night of August 14 and 15.

“I was summoned in connection with the CBI’s ongoing probe into the rape and murder of the junior doctor. I answered their queries and told them I would cooperate,” Minakshi told reporters.

The CBI also summoned two officials of a hotel in Salt Lake where a house-staff of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital had spent the night of August 9.

The CBI sources said they wanted to check the register and find out more about this junior doctor in connection with the probe.