The Trinamool Congress leadership, including senior Minister Firhad Hakim, has launched a merciless diatribe against the parents of the victim, a lady doctor from the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital rape and murder case, for demanding Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's resignation, holding her responsible for a botched investigation.
"Everyone has sympathy for the parents of the victim… but now they are talking beyond their limits… They are under the influence of some political forces and have been politicizing the issue… They are behaving as though they are the ones who made Mamata Banerjee the Chief Minister of Bengal… The Chief Minister is there not by their mercy, but by the people of Bengal. It is not the parents of the victim, but the people of Bengal who made her the Chief Minister… so they should remain within their limits, or else they will lose the sympathy of the people," said Hakim, considered the senior-most man in the State Cabinet.
Another senior TMC leader, Kunal Ghosh, said, "The parents of the deceased doctor are being used by forces who want to defame, malign, and plot a conspiracy against the Mamata Banerjee government and derail the process of justice for narrow causes… I urge them not to be used by any quarter." He also pointed out the inconsistency in the parents' stance, saying, "It's strange that today they are criticizing the Kolkata Police, which arrested Sanjoy Roy, and the next day they are attacking the CBI."
A postgraduate lady doctor was found brutally raped and murdered in the early hours of August 9 inside the Seminar Hall of the Chest Medicine Department at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital (RGKMCH), a historic health facility credited with being the first private medical college in Asia during the late 19th century. The hospital later became a government facility.
Frustrated by the poor investigation, the father of the victim had earlier demanded Banerjee's resignation, stating, "It is the Chief Minister who is responsible for the entire RG Kar incident… She has helped in the cover-up… She has done this to save her own people who were involved in this gruesome rape and murder… She has no right to continue as the Chief Minister."
Referring to the judgment passed by the Sealdah District and Sessions Judge, the father of the victim said, "I am not making these remarks out of the blue… It is very clear from the judgment passed by the judge… I call upon the critics to please go through the judgment to understand why I am saying this. The judicial remarks clearly show how evidence has been tampered with, how vital witnesses were not examined, and how the investigating agencies worked to suppress and tamper with the evidence… It also shows how they ignored questioning the people who were with my daughter in her final hours."
Sessions Judge Anirban Das had convicted Sanjoy Roy to incarceration until death, with some disturbing observations for the investigating agencies.
Referring to the "52 questions that we have placed in our argument before the Supreme Court," the victim's mother asked why the senior IPS officers who were present at the crime scene and had misled the public and media about the people present at the scene had not been interrogated by the CBI for their conduct.
"The Chief Minister has to explain why the crime scene was not sealed… She has to explain why, from the footage of 68 people, only one person, Sanjoy Roy, was identified as the sole perpetrator of the crime… Why did the police burn the body in a hurry?" she asked. "Why were the other three DNA samples found on the victim's body not examined?" She also wondered why, despite repeated requests, the CBI had not questioned Mamata Banerjee as a witness.
She claimed that while the CBI did not act on the alleged suppression of facts, the state administration had failed to protect a woman medic at her workplace.
While both the State Government and the CBI, as the main prosecutor, had moved the Calcutta High Court seeking a death sentence for Roy, the parents had moved the Supreme Court seeking permission for the High Court to examine the questions raised by them. The Apex Court, which had earlier suo motu called for the case and monitored its investigation, had yet to vacate its order.