RG Kar Rape-Murder: Why Trinamool’s Claim That CBI Chargesheet Validates Kolkata Police Probe Is Baseless

The Trinamool Congress went on the offensive after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) named civic cop Sanjoy Roy as the only accused in its first chargesheet on Monday (7 October) regarding the grisly rape-murder of a postgraduate intern at RG Kar Medical College Hospital. 

The Trinamool Congress loudly claimed that Roy had been arrested by the Kolkata police within 24 hours of the first information report (FIR) being lodged.

“The CBI took over the investigation two days later, following the Calcutta High Court’s orders, and filed the chargesheet after 58 days, naming Roy — who was arrested for the crime by Kolkata Police — as the only accused,” said Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh. 

“Those who demanded a CBI investigation should see the outcome today: in the rape and murder case, the CBI has only filed a chargesheet against Sanjay Roy, who was arrested by Kolkata Police within 24 hours. Let’s admit it — Kolkata Police was on the right track,” Ghosh said. 

But this boast is nothing but empty rhetoric.

Primarily because the CBI has also arrested former RG Kar Medical College principal Sandip Ghosh and former officer-in-charge of Tala Police Station Abhijit Mondal on charges of destroying evidence, delaying the registration of the FIR, and attempting to shield the prime accused (Roy). 

The central probe agency is expected to name them in subsequent chargesheets. The CBI has also arrested another doctor — house staff Ashish Pandey, the president of the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (the ruling party’s students’ wing) unit president at RG Kar Medical College — for his complicity in covering up the crime and various other acts of malfeasance. 

Had the CBI not taken up the probe, these three would likely never have been arrested, and their alleged involvement in destroying evidence and attempting a cover-up would remain undisclosed.

The CBI is also probing a few more junior doctors close to the Trinamool Congress for their complicity in the crime. They too would likely never have been investigated by Kolkata police. 

It is the Kolkata police which is being accused of contaminating the crime scene by not securing it and allowing many people access to the seminar hall inside the hospital where the body of the victim was discovered on 9 August. 

That being the case, the Kolkata police would never have investigated a crime they are accused of, nor would they likely have arrested one of their own officers allegedly colluding with former principal Ghosh to cover it up. 

Ghosh used to wield a lot of power and was reportedly close to the top echelons of the Trinamool Congress leadership. He was the satrap of the medical college and hospital and, under the blanket protection of the Trinamool Congress, used to exercise control over even the topmost officers of the state health department. Mamata Banerjee, incidentally, holds the health portfolio.

Additionally, it was the CBI that initiated investigations into corruption and other misconduct at RG Kar Medical College Hospital.

Complaints of corruption, malfeasance, and a 'threat culture' — including the exploitation of medical students and junior doctors, coercing them to do the Trinamool's bidding, and extorting large sums of money for passing grades — were not unknown to the health department and even the health minister. 

However, the health department ignored the complaints and even allegedly tried to silence the complainants.

Additionally, the Calcutta High Court’s order to hand the probe over to the CBI instilled confidence in many doctors at RG Kar and various other state-run medical colleges and hospitals, encouraging them to come forward and expose the corruption within their institutions. 

It also forced the state government to set up a committee to hear complaints about the corruption and misgovernance in various government medical colleges and hospitals. Had the CBI not taken up the case, the rot in the state healthcare and medical education system would never have come to light. 

No matter how much the Trinamool Congress tries to push the narrative about the Kolkata police’s initial probe into the rape-murder being ‘on the right track,’ the fact is that the police’s conduct and various acts of omission and commission on 9 and 10 August had raised grave suspicions of an elaborate cover-up attempt. 

Kolkata police, as is widely known, registered an FIR 14 hours after the crime and went along with the medical college authorities’ initial attempts to pass off the rape-murder as a suicide. This earned the police a sharp rap on its knuckles from the Supreme Court.  

Kolkata police failed to secure the crime scene, which caused it to be contaminated. This obliterated a lot of evidence and has handicapped the CBI. Had the crime scene not been contaminated, perhaps the involvement of more people (as is being widely suspected) in the crime would have been discovered. 

The undue haste of the police and state authorities in conducting the autopsy — performed after sunset, contrary to established norms — and cremating the body the same evening precluded the possibility of a subsequent autopsy, raising suspicions of a cover-up. 

The treatment of the victim's parents by the medical college authorities and the police — who pressured them to cremate the body that very evening — raised significant questions. 

The involvement of Trinamool leaders in facilitating the quick cremation of the body of the victim had also raised many red flags. 

The CBI has questioned scores of people, including the Trinamool Congress leaders who are suspected of trying to tamper with evidence and cover up the crime. Some of them are likely to find their names in subsequent chargesheets. 

Kolkata police would not have even questioned all these people because officers and men of the force are widely suspected to have been involved in the elaborate subversion that was attempted. 

Therefore, the Trinamool Congress's attempts to assert that the CBI's first chargesheet shows the central probe agency accomplished nothing beyond what Kolkata police did in the initial 24 hours after the crime holds no water. 

The CBI, in its 45-page chargesheet, has charged Roy under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Sections 64(1) (rape), 66 (inflicting injury which causes the death of a woman or causes the woman to be in persistent vegetative state) and 103 (1) (murder). The last two penal sections are punishable by death.

The CBI conducted a polygraph test on Roy but was unable to perform a narco-analysis test due to his refusal to grant permission. In the chargesheet, the central agency has cited 128 witnesses — 51 for the rape-murder and the remaining for charges related to evidence tampering and conspiracy. 

The Trinamool Congress would be better off holding its silence than making bizarre claims that the CBI’s first chargesheet serves as a ringing endorsement of the initial probe and action taken by Kolkata police. Future chargesheets may well put Bengal’s ruling party in a difficult position.