Amid the political hue and cry over the Kolkata medic's rape and murder in the city's R G Kar Medical College and Hospital, a letter from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to former principal of the college, Sandip Ghosh, has come to light.
CNN News18 accessed the letter, written on the CM's letterhead, where she had wished Ghosh on his birthday. The letter is dated June 30, 2022.
The publication cited sources to reveal that Ghosh was among a select few whom Banerjee sent personalised letters on their birthdays.
This fresh revelation has resultantly given the Opposition more ammunition to attack the Bengal CM, who is already under fire over the incident.
"This is the reason that when a special committee was formed to find out irregularities at R G Kar Hospital after a vigilance report, Dr Sandip Ghosh was not removed. He was still intact in the college," BJP leader Priyanka Tibrewal told the publication.
Ghosh, who is being interrogated by the CBI in connection with the rape and murder of a trainee doctor on the hospital premises, also faces allegations of financial irregularities during his tenure as principal of the state-run facility.
The West Bengal government set up the SIT on August 20 to probe into the allegations of financial irregularities, which resurfaced amid a nationwide outcry over the medic's rape and murder at the hospital.
The Calcutta High Court's decision to transfer the case to the CBI came in response to a petition by former deputy superintendent of the facility, Akhtar Ali, who sought a probe by the Enforcement Directorate into alleged financial irregularities at the institute during Ghosh's tenure.
Meanwhile, the lie detection tests on the main accused and six others in the alleged rape and murder began on Saturday.
The polygraph test on Sanjay Roy, the main accused, is being conducted in the prison where he is lodged, while the remaining six, including Ghosh and four doctors who were on duty during the night of the incident and a civic volunteer, are undergoing the test at the agency's office in Kolkata, they said.
Ghosh arrived at the CBI's office at CGO Complex in Salt Lake on Saturday morning for the ninth day consecutive day, and was then taken for the test, the officials said.
Those undergoing the lie detection test include two first-year postgraduate trainees, as investigators allegedly found their fingerprints inside a seminar hall at the state-run medical facility where the medic's body was discovered, an official said.
A team of polygraph specialists from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) in Delhi have flown to Kolkata to conduct these tests, he said.
With PTI inputs