Kolkata probe deepens

Bahut kuch mila (many things have been found), a senior official of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said on Sunday regarding the searches conducted at RG Kar Medical College Hospital, where a young female doctor was allegedly raped and murdered on the night of August 9, sparking a nationwide outcry over women’s safety at workplaces in West Bengal.

The brief remark from the investigator came hours after polygraph tests were conducted on the prime accused, Sanjoy Roy, former RG Kar principal Sandip Ghosh, and five other junior doctors. According to sources, the subjects were asked 17-18 questions, ranging from simple queries about their names and the colour of a tomato or the sky, to more pertinent questions about their possible involvement in the crime.

Sources said Ghosh showed no hesitation when submitting himself to the test. “He was confident and cooperative,” an official remarked. However, officials declined to comment on whether Ghosh was questioned about the alleged multi-crore corruption scheme that ran through RGKMH during his tenure, which some striking doctors at the college believe could be linked to the brutal rape and murder of the postgraduate trainee doctor earlier this month.

The tests were conducted amid allegations that around ten senior doctors, who are reportedly close to influential figures in the State Government, held a long meeting on August 9 inside the seminar hall where the victim’s body was later found.

“The CCTV footage if they are not destroyed can reveal everything… how 10 doctors of other medical colleges came at the crime scene and conducted a meeting inside the seminar hall… this was well before the family of the victim doctor was informed or they arrived in the hospital,” said Sajal Biswas a doctor raising doubts regarding the fact that whether the crime was committed inside the seminar hall or inside the adjacent doctors’ rest room.

A parallel theory circulating within the hospital suggests that the doctor’s body was moved to the seminar hall after the crime.

A protesting resident doctor said “the haste in which the wall separating the two rooms was demolished and the 3-4  hours that separated the time of discovery of the body and the entry of the police… constituting the missing links… can all be explained through the meeting that took place inside the hospital that day… now the question is whether these doctors would be called for interrogation”.

The polygraph tests were necessitated following CBI allegations that persons being grilled were evading replies regarding the chronology of events and trying to mislead the investigation process.

The tests were conducted a day after a CJM Court granted permission to the CBI officials to do so. While Ghosh and others were subjected to the test on Saturday Roy was tested inside the Presidency Jail hospital on Sunday afternoon. 

Polygraph tests apart, the several CBI teams on Sunday conducted raids at 15 different locations including in the houses of Ghosh, a former national footballer, several doctors a forensic medicine expert in Kolkata and Howrah, sources said adding a team conducted raids at the Principal’s office in RGKMCH from where the officials collected “quite a few evidences.”

The Sunday’s developments came at a time when the junior doctors of other medical colleges decide to take out a mass convention on Monday demanding the resignation of Vineet Goyal the Kolkata Police Commissioner who the doctors said had tried to suppress facts and mislead the investigation process.