The Bengal junior doctors fighting for justice in the Kolkata lady doctor rape and murder case betrayed dejection following Supreme Court’s refusal on Thursday to transfer the trial out of Bengal as also the regular long gaps between hearings.
“We had hope on the judiciary … we still repose faith in it as we have nowhere else to go but the question is how long Abhaya (as the victim has been pseudo named) and her family and the citizens, particularly the women of Bengal will wait to get justice if delivery of justice gets delayed … justice delayed is justice denied,” said one of the junior doctors even as one of their leaders Doctor Kinjal Nanda once again gave out a call for citizens’ march on November 9.
Another doctor said, “we being doctors ourselves have an idea of what is rape and what is gang rape … putting all the evidences together and the fact how the evidences were tampered … the CBI should have been more comprehensive … we don’t say it is not efficient … we expected stronger directions from the Courts if there was any doubt of the Agency being pulled from behind from doing its duty.”
Incidentally the prime accused Sanjoy Roy had earlier told the media for the first time that he was being framed and that the State Police department had forced him to keep silent. “I have been forced and threatened into silence by the Department … this Government is falsely framing me … I have not committed rape or murder,” he had told the media a couple of days ago from inside the prison van.
Earlier after going through the status report of investigation submitted by the Central Bureau of Investigation the Supreme Court directed the central agency to carry on its work and submit the seventh status report after four weeks.
During the hearing the Apex Court turned down the plea made by a senior counsel to transfer the case out of Bengal. While the advocate submitted that charges had already been framed and trial started with Sanjoy Roy as the prime and only accused of rape and murder the Bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud said the trial court had sufficient powers to order another investigation upon feeling it necessary after examining the evidence.
A postgraduate lady doctor of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata had in the small hours of August 9 been brutally raped and murdered triggering a nationwide stir and worldwide condemnation of how a woman was victimized thus inside her work place.
Though the CBI which has been investigating the case following a Calcutta High Court order had arrested several other persons including Sandip Ghosh the former Principal of the RGKMCH and an officer in-charge besides another doctor and a security guard those arrests had been made on ancillary charges and not the main cause.
This, where as medical experts and former police and CBI bosses --- like Upen Biswas who cracked the Bihar animal husbandry case --- repeatedly demanded a wider investigation taking into view the facts of tampering of evidences.
