Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 7: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has finally filed the charge-sheet in the sensational rape and murder of a trainee postgraduate doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9 holding Sanjay Roy, the civil police volunteer, as the sole responsible for the heinous crime.
The charge-sheet filed in a court in Sealdah in Kolkata on Monday made no mention of gang rape as was apprehended earlier, though the CBI maintained that the investigation into the incident was still on. The CBI sources said the evidences available so far had led the central agency to conclude that Roy single-handedly raped and murdered the trainee doctor at the seminar hall of the hospital where she was asleep during a break in her duty. At the time of the crime, the accused was in an inebriated condition, the charge-sheet mentioned.
It was the first charge-sheet in the case filed 58 days after the rape-murder. The 45-page document was submitted in the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) Court in Sealdah on Monday afternoon.
“Sanjay Roy has been charged with rape and murder. There is no mention of a gang rape (in the chargesheet). Sanjay Roy is the only accused who committed the crime. However, the probe is still going on. He was in an inebriated condition when the crime was committed. This is mentioned in the charge sheet,” said a source in CBI. According to sources, the chargesheet highlighted that investigations have so far revealed that Sanjay Roy is the only one accused of direct involvement in the rape and murder. The chargesheet also mentioned that there were 16 external and nine internal injuries on the body of the doctor. It was also alleged in the chagresheet that Roy tried to mislead investigators during questioning.
According to sources, the blood and tissue found from the victim’s nails also matched with Roy’s DNA.
The statements of about 200 people have been recorded in the charge sheet that names Roy as the main accused, according to CBI sources. It is still under investigation if there were multiple suspects and if this was a gang rape case, they added. The 31-year old trainee doctor was found dead at the hospital on August 9 and subsequent investigations revealed the horror she had gone through. The court had asked the CBI to take over the probe amid nationwide protests.
Roy, who frequented the hospital, was arrested a day later by Kolkata Police. They handed him over to the CBI along with other evidence when the central agency took over the investigation at the behest of the Calcutta High Court on August 13. The then principal of the college, Sandip Ghosh, has also been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the CBI in two different cases of financial irregularities and evidence tampering.
In its chargesheet filed against Sanjay Roy, the CBI has given a detailed sequence of events, including the movements of the main accused and the victim, in and around the crime. The central agency said it has minutely scanned the CCTV cameras of the hospital and nearby areas. In its charge-sheet, it said CCTV footage and call data record (CDR) analysis show Roy’s presence at the scene of the crime.
As per the detail sequence of events:
3.42 AM: Sanjay Roy was seen entering from the main gate of the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. He parked his bike near the gate.
3.48 AM: He was then spotted on the ramp of the emergency ward, entering the building
4.03 AM: Roy was seen on the third-floor corridor near the scene of crime
4.32 AM: He was then seen coming out of the chest ward on the third floor
4.37 AM: The main accused left RG Kar hospital premises on a bike
The charge-sheet noted the victim doctor’s movements as that the trainee doctor was with four colleagues inside the seminar hall on the intervening night of August 8 and 9. They had ordered a meal through a food aggregator. A doctor (the victim’s colleague) last saw the victim around 3 am. The post-mortem report has determined the woman doctor’s time of death as being after 4 am.
Sources further said when Roy’s medical examination was conducted, “recent injuries on his person were found like on left cheek abrasion in left hand between his left and ring finger abrasion over the back of the left thigh etc.” The Kolkata Police recovered nine articles from him, mainly his clothes and helmet. The CBI recorded the statements of more than 45 witnesses and subjected at least 10 of them to polygraph tests.
There were seven injuries on the victim’s body, including ligature marks on the neck. Her death was due to manual strangulation associated with smothering. The CBI has also arrested Tala police station officer in-charge Abhijit Mondal and former RG Kar principal Sandip Ghosh in the case. Ghosh is also facing another CBI case pertaining to alleged corruption.
In its remand note to the special court, the CBI said: “Details of each and every phone call exchanged…is required to be verified with the suspected calls to verify their versions with a view to explore the possibility of criminal conspiracy hatched among main accused and co-accused persons, if any.”
The incident had caused widespread outrage and led to a long strike by junior doctors in West Bengal. The accused Sanjay Roy is attached to the police outpost of the hospital.