CBI adds rape-murder charge against ex-principal of R G Kar Hospital, arrests cop
Kolkata: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Saturday arrested Dr Sandip Ghosh, the former principal of the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, in connection with the rape and murder of a postgraduate trainee doctor at the healthcare facility run by the West Bengal government.
The CBI made the first arrests a month after taking over the probe from the Kolkata Police, which had arrested another man a day after the young trainee doctor had been found raped and murdered.
The central agency also arrested Abhijit Mondal, who was the officer-in-charge of Tala Police Station that was first informed after the 31-year-old doctor was found raped and murdered in the seminar room of the Department of Chest Medicine on the third floor of the RGKMCH.
Mondal was arrested for allegedly delaying the lodging of the First Information Report, destruction of evidence, and misleading the investigation in the case.
Dr Ghosh, who was removed from the office of the RGKMCH principal, is already behind bars as the CBI’s Anti-Corruption Bureau on September 2 arrested him in connection with the allegations of corruption and financial misconduct at the hospital-cum-medical-college in Kolkata during his tenure as principal.
Mondal was also suspended after the rape and murder of the doctor and the allegations of a cover-up attempt by the Kolkata Police and RGKMCH authorities triggered widespread outrage. On Saturday, he was questioned by the CBI officers at their CGO Complex office here for several hours and was arrested in the evening after he failed to give them satisfying answers.
Mondal and Dr Ghosh were the second and the third persons to be arrested in connection with the rape and murder of the young doctor.
The Kolkata Police had arrested Sanjay Roy, a civic volunteer (a contractual support employee of the law enforcement agency), for raping and murdering the junior doctor just a day after her body was found early on August 9. After the Calcutta High Court ordered the CBI to take over the probe, the Kolkata Police handed over Roy to the central agency on August 14.
The High Court on August 23 also ordered the CBI to take over the probe from the Special Investigation Team, which Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s government had constituted in the wake of the allegations of financial misconduct against Dr Ghosh and his close associates. The Enforcement Directorate also launched an investigation into the allegations of corruption at the RGKMCH.