By Sujit Bhar
In the wee hours of August 9, a lady PG trainee doctor at the 138-year-old RG Medical College of Kolkata watched Indian javelin star Neeraj Chopra’s silver winning performance at the Paris Olympic Games with her colleagues and went to sleep, presumably at the seminar room of the hospital. She was on a 36-hour shift, and interns took small naps in between when patients were less.
In those early hours, she was ruthlessly gang-raped and then murdered within the hospital, the levels of cruelty reaching and sometimes exceeding the cruelty with which the Nirbhaya murder was committed in New Delhi in 2012.
When the murder came to light in the morning, the principal of the college, Dr Sandip Ghosh, made comments that further shook the public. A person identifying himself as the deputy superintendent of the hospital rang up the parents of the lady doctor and said that their daughter had “committed suicide”. The principal, against whom there have been many allegations of corruption in the past, asked why would the lady doctor go and sleep in that room, knowing well that there are no rest rooms allotted for the doctors who toil through the night in the wards.
Neither the principal, the administrative head of the hospital, nor the superintendent of the institution bothered to lodge any FIR at the police station. Under immense pressure, Dr Ghosh tendered his resignation as principal, but the state government, in a matter of four hours, reappointed him as principal of another prestigious government hospital of the city, the Calcutta National Medical College (CNMC).
The protests reached a crescendo and the students at CNMC refused to let Dr Ghosh enter the premises of that hospital.
The Kolkata Police, in a matter of 24 hours apprehended a man called Sanjay Roy, a civic volunteer who had been working with the police as the prime suspect. He was apprehended, apparently after the police went through CCTV footage of the hospital. However, as it seems now, there was a clear attempt by the state administration to create a scapegoat (not that Sanjay Roy wasn’t part of the conspiracy) and divert attention from a much bigger racket that was on in the hospital under the patronage of Dr Ghosh, and probably some senior people in the state administration.
The parents of the murdered doctor were initially forced by the state Trinamool Congress leaders to accept that what the police did was good, but later changed their mind and went to court, seeking justice. The Calcutta High Court acted with alacrity and questioned the entire procedure of the investigation and asked why Dr Ghosh was given another prize posting when he failed in his current post.
The division bench of the Calcutta High Court of Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice H Bhattacharyya ordered Dr Ghosh to go on long leave and asked the Kolkata Police for all details. With the parents demanding an independent probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the bench agreed, and despite Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee having said that she would transfer the case to the CBI only if the Kolkata Police failed, transferred the case to the central agency with immediate effect.
The utter cruelty of the murder apart, the entire issue is complex and too many nefarious activities are slowly coming to light. In the midst, the CBI, which does not have natural clearance to function in West Bengal, has now got the Calcutta High Court’s clearance to delve deep. That should help in solving this horrific murder case, but there is nothing to stop the CBI from entering other areas on the pretext of probing allied and related incidents. That would lead to a major political twist, with the BJP leaders in the state constantly gunning for prime spots in the state.
Mamata, till the other day, was in a position of near invincibility. Today, the undisputed leader of Bengal is a harrowed person, having allowed too many nefarious activities under her watch. The High Court has decided to oversee the CBI probe and has promised to fast-track the investigation.
The waters are muddy enough and the issue is set to become uglier.