Junior doctors protesting the rape and murder of a colleague at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in West Bengal remained resolute in their agitation on Sunday, as thousands braved heavy rain to join demonstrations sweeping through Kolkata.
The demonstrations coincided with developments in the investigation, as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) produced Dr Sandip Ghosh, former principal of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, and Abhijit Mondal, officer-in-charge of the local Tala police station, before the Sealdah court.
The CBI told the court it suspected the two were part of a “bigger conspiracy” to cover up the crime. According to lawyers present at the hearing, the agency accused Ghosh and Mondal of attempting to “downplay the incident” and “shield” the accused.
The doctors’ protests entered their sixth consecutive day outside Swasthya Bhavan, the state health department headquarters in Salt Lake, where junior doctors continued their sit-in, a day after a second attempt at talks collapsed.
“We are steadfast in our resolve to seek justice for our sister, no matter the adversity. We have spent nights on the streets in harsh conditions and inclement weather despite some of us not feeling well,” an agitating junior medic said, according to news agency PTI.
Throughout Sunday, various groups, including retired Army officers, former students of Calcutta Girls’ High School, and hundreds of nurses, held rallies across the city demanding justice and workplace safety.
Holding placards with slogans such as “Arji noi dabi kor” (don’t request but demand), the doctors reiterated their demands for the resignation of Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal, the West Bengal health secretary and other officials.
“We have been waiting for the last 36 days and still there is no assurance. When will we get justice for our sister?” one of the junior doctors said while addressing participants of the march.
On Saturday, hopes of a breakthrough briefly emerged when chief minister Mamata Banerjee made a surprise visit in the afternoon to the site where the doctors were protesting and assured them that their demands would be addressed. But the proposed meeting fell through late evening, with the protesters claiming that they were asked to leave “unceremoniously” after waiting for three hours at the gates of the CM’s residence.
While the government has held that the impasse is on part of the protesters’ insistence that the parleys be live streamed, a third protesting doctor said they had agreed to attend the meeting without these conditions but were told to leave because it was too late.
“We must stay strong. This fight isn’t just ours, it is for the 10 crore people of Bengal. The arrests of Sandip Ghosh and the officer-in-charge of Tala Police Station validate our view that attempts were made to cover up this heinous crime,” he said.
The court granted the CBI three days’ custody of Ghosh and Mondal until 17 September.
Ghosh, who was already in judicial custody following his arrest on September 2 in a parallel CBI probe into financial corruption at the hospital, and Mondal, who was questioned several times by the agency since August 13, were arrested on Saturday in the rape and murder case – specifically over allegations that they tampered with the evidence, delayed filing the first information report (FIR) and misleading investigators during interrogation.
“The Shealdah court remanded them in CBI custody for three days on Sunday afternoon after our lawyers said they need to be interrogated,” a CBI official said on condition of anonymity.
Lawyers present at the hearing said CBI told the Shealdah additional chief judicial magistrate’s court that Mondal filed the FIR on the night of April 9 although the Tala police station was informed about the incident by the hospital staff at 10 am. Police reached the crime scene an hour after getting the information, the court was told.
The CBI’s lawyers also told the court that the initial general diary (GD) entry at the Tala police station said a junior doctor had been found in an unconscious condition although the hospital’s senior doctors, including Sandip Ghosh, present at the crime scene at that time already knew that the victim was dead.
Three people have so far been arrested in the 31-year-old trainee doctor’s grisly murder which has triggered agitations across Bengal.
On August 10, Kolkata Police arrested Sanjay Roy, one of its own civic volunteers, as the prime suspect. The Calcutta high court directed CBI on August 13 to take over the case from the city police. Roy was transferred to the custody of the CBI and subsequently he was made to take a polygraph test alongside Sandip Ghosh and five other RG Kar Hospital officials and doctors.
Political tensions too escalated, with the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) increasing pressure on the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC). Bengal BJP unit president Sukanta Majumdar said, “More people will be arrested and the real conspirators will be exposed. Nobody believes that a medical college principal and a police inspector could have planned a crime of this nature.”
In response, TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh stated, “The state government, too, wants the culprits arrested. Kolkata police made the first arrest. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee was the first to demand death sentence for the criminals.”
