Hailing the Calcutta High Court order transferring the probe into the alleged rape and murder of a woman doctor from Kolkata Police to CBI, senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari on Tuesday demanded the resignation of West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee for her alleged failure to ensure the safety and security of women doctors at state-run hospitals.
Asking people to hit the streets demanding the resignation of Banerjee, who also holds the health and home portfolios, Adhikari, the leader of opposition in the assembly, said BJP MLAs would launch a sit-in in Kolkata on August 14 to press for their demand.
The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday ordered the transfer of the probe into the alleged rape and death of a woman doctor from the Kolkata Police to the CBI.
Hailing the HC order, Adhikari said it was required to thwart attempts to suppress evidence to shield the main culprits who are yet to be put behind bars.
"I am happy the HC ordered court-monitored CBI probe into the savage torture and murder of the young woman. Only a CBI probe would ensure justice for the victim and her family. I think the HC order also acknowledged the demand for a judicial probe by the medicos community belonging to R G Kar Hospital and other hospitals as the probe will be monitored by the judiciary," he added.
Adhikari said to his knowledge certain process has to be followed for ordering any judicial probe, as demanded by medical students which would have taken time and hence court-monitored CBI probe is most appropriate.
He alleged the CM rushed to the residence of the deceased woman to "force the grieving parents to toe the state police's line of investigation, to accept state's narratives and not demand an impartial, fair probe by a central agency like CBI." "Why the CM did not visit her residence immediately afterwards? She went there only after finding the situation slipping out of the grip of ruling TMC as people of the state, including doctors, did not accept the script weaved by the state government and demanded let truth come out," he said.
Adhikari also claimed despite attempts by the ruling party to pressurize the parents of the woman doctor, the family mustered the courage to become part of the plea for a CBI probe to the high court.
The senior BJP MLA from Nandigram also said they have prayed Commissioner of Police Vineet Goyal and former principal and superintendent of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital will be brought under the ambit of investigation.
About Adhikari's demands, senior Trinamool Congress leader Santanu Sen told PTI that BJP is doing "politics of vulture with dead bodies and politicizing the shocking, tragic assault and murder of a woman doctor." "It was Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who had first visited the parents of the deceased at their residence and expressed her solidarity with her family and friends at the hospital. In no BJP-ruled state, you would find the CM rushing to the people in such a way," he said.
"As the BJP had repeatedly failed to dislodge the TMC government, which got the mandate of people in every poll in past, they are now trying every trick to destabilize the government by lawlessness which will never succeed," he said.
"BJP had repeatedly used ED, CBI to harass the ruling party but their attempts were thwarted by the people of Bengal," he said.
The body of the postgraduate trainee, who was allegedly raped and murdered inside a seminar hall of the state-run RG Kar hospital, was found on Friday morning. A Kolkata Police civic volunteer was arrested in this connection on Saturday.
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