NEW DELHI, Aug 23: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday searched the residence of Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA and doctor Sudipta Roy for his alleged involvement in the financial irregularities in the West Bengal government-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital (RGKMCH).
The two CBI officials went to the north Kolkata house of Dr Roy in Sinthi on Saturday and conducted search operations for hours. The legislator’s house has been searched before on multiple occasions by both the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED), and the MLA himself has been questioned for his alleged involvement in the financial irregularities case.
A doctor by profession, Dr Roy, the Sreerampur MLA, was the chairman of the Rogi Kalyan Samity (Patient Welfare Committee) at the RGKMCH and also the president of the West Bengal Medical Council (WBMC). He is also considered close to former RGKMCH principal Sandip Ghosh. The CBI had arrested Mr Ghosh over allegations of financial irregularities at RGKMCH as well as on charges of tampering with evidence and delay in filing FIR after a female doctor was found raped and murdered inside a seminar room of RGKMCH on August 9, last year.
During previous searches of Mr Roy’s house in last September, BJP MLA and Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari had said Mr Roy was a “corrupt person” who used new medical equipment and machines from R. G. Kar hospital at his nursing home and sent old machines to the government hospital. Denying the allegations, Mr Roy told a local television channel, “This is not possible. I have built the nursing home gradually with a lot of pain. If any of you have any proof, then show it.”
In a related development, the TMC leader Kunal Ghosh filed a defamation case against the father of the R.G. Kar rape and murder victim on Wednesday following allegations the latter made that he had “made a settlement” with the CBI to bury the probe. “Today we filed a defamation lawsuit at the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) court in Kolkata against the victim’s father. At the recent Nabanna Abhijaan, he had alleged that Mr Ghosh made a settlement with the Central Bureau of Investigation at their office at CGO complex. These comments are baseless and defamatory,” Mr Ghosh’s legal counsel, Ayon Chakraborty, said.
The CBI was probing the sensational rape and murder of the trainee doctor and has arrested a civic police volunteer Sanjay Roy in this connection who has also been held guilty by the court and sentenced to life imprisonment. Her parents, however, were not satisfied with the probe insisting that “others” involved in the gruesome rape and murder were being “shielded” by the ruling party.
On August 12, Mr Ghosh sent a legal notice to the father of the victim in response to a comment the latter had made to the media. “We had sent a legal notice to the victim’s father last week and asked him to withdraw these statements through the press or social media. However, we received no reaction or response from him on the matter. So we went forward with the defamation case,” Mr Chakraborty said.
Mr Ghosh said while he was empathetic to the grieving parents, they do not have the right to make such statements. “Someone is exploiting their sentiments and shooting off over the family’s shoulders. I do not know who that is, but I must protest against it. I have two pending cases with the CBI, how can I meet them to settle a different case,” he asked.
Meanwhile, in another sensational rape case, this time of a law college student on the evening of June 25, the Kolkata police on Friday filed a 658-page charge-sheet naming four accused, including the principal accused Monojit Mishra, said to be a TMC students’ wing leader.
A high-ranking official of the Kolkata Police on Saturday said Mr Mishra, 31, a former student and staff member of the college; current students Zaib Ahmed, 19, and Pramit Mukherjee, 20; and the security guard on duty at the time, Pinaki Banerjee, 55, had been charged under several Sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including 70(1) (gangrape); 142 (wrongful confinement); 140(3) (kidnapping with intention to cause harm); and 238 (concealing evidence or shielding offender with false information), among other charges.
Mishra, Ahmed, and Mukherjee have also been charged under Section 77 of the BNS, which deals with the watching or capturing images of a woman in a private act without her consent, and certain Sections of the Information Technology Act that deal with transmission of sexually explicit content. The police additionally charged Mishra under BNS Sections 118(1) (causing grievous hurt through dangerous means), and 351(3) (criminal intimidation).
According to the survivor’s police complaint, the accused sexually assaulted her between 7.30 p.m. and 10.50 p.m. on June 25, in the security guard’s room. They had also allegedly locked the main gates of the campus, filmed the assault, and threatened to release videos of the act.
The survivor also accused the college security guard of not helping her despite being present on campus at the time the crime was committed. “The accused took me to the guard’s room and made the guard sit outside. They took me to the guard’s room forcefully. One of them undressed me and started raping me… [One of the accused] also tried to hit me with a hockey stick,” the survivor had said in her written complaint to the police.
Students of the college, including the complainant, had said Mishra, called ‘MangoDa’ by students, had significant political sway within the campus despite being a former student, due to his alleged links to the ruling party. ‘Monojit Dada is in our hearts’ was found written in prominent graffiti on the walls of the campus.
TMC leaders have denied allegations of Mishra’s association with the party, with the president the party’s Chhatra Parishad (students’ council) Trinankur Bhattacharya claiming that Mishra held the “lowermost” position of “one of many organising secretaries” in the south Kolkata unit, and that the party had severed ties with him in 2022.
(Manas Dasgupta)