Kolkata rape-murder case: Victim’s mother accuses Mamata Banerjee of stopping protests; questions cops

The mother of the 31-year-old junior doctor raped and murdered at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on Sunday alleged that West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was trying to stamp out protests swelling across the state against the heinous crime and said the Kolkata police did not investigate the incident properly.

Medical professionals light candles as they pay tribute to a victim of the rape and murder of a young medic from Kolkata, in Amritsar on Sunday. (AFP)

“She (Banerjee) said the culprits would be arrested as soon as possible, but only one person has been held. I am sure more people in the hospital are involved. I think the chief minister is trying to stop the protests. That’s why police enforced prohibitory orders today to stop the assembly of protestors,” the victim’s mother told the media at the family’s home in North 24 Parganas district.

She was speaking in reference to the imposition of orders preventing the assembly of four or more people within 200m of Salt Lake Stadium on the eastern outskirts of Kolkata, where a Durand Cup match between arch rivals East Bengal and Mohun Bagan clubs was abandoned on Sunday afternoon.

Police told the organisers of the match that it would not be able to provide adequate force required for the event because of deployments at protest sites across the city.

The victim’s mother accused the Kolkata police of trying to “close the investigation as fast as possible”.

“The police did not carry out a proper investigation. The officers did not cooperate with us at all. They only tried to close the case as soon as possible. They wanted to get the autopsy done as fast as they could and cremate the body,” the victim’s mother said.

The Kolkata high court division bench of chief justice TS Sivagnanam and justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take over the case from the Kolkata Police on August 13.

A 31-year-old civic volunteer with the police, Sanjay Roy, has been arrested in connection with the case. The crime left Kolkata stunned and prompted sweeping protests across the country even as doctors across the country struck work demanding safe working conditions.

The federal probe agency continued their investigations at the RG Kar hospital on Sunday and questioned several people, including Sandip Ghosh, the former principal of the medical college who was transferred after the crime.

The woman’s mother said the hospital first informed them that their daughter had died by suicide.

“First we got a call from the hospital saying ‘your daughter is sick’, after which the call was disconnected. After that, when I called and asked what happened, they told me to come to the hospital. When we called again, the (caller) identified himself as ‘assistant super’ and said ‘your daughter has died by suicide’. She went for duty on Thursday (August 8). We got this call on Friday at 10.53 am. When we reached, we were not allowed to see her, we were allowed to see her at 3pm. Her pants were open, there was only one piece of cloth on her body. Her hand was broken, and blood was coming out of her eyes, and mouth. Just by looking at her, it seemed that someone had murdered her,” she said.

Meanwhile, a series of protests paralysed movement of traffic in large parts of Kolkata.

Although the football match was abandoned, a huge contingent of policemen was deployed around the Salt Lake stadium in the afternoon when the police found that supporters of East Bengal and Mohun Bagan clubs would assemble in a rare exhibition of unity to protest the RG Kar Hospital incident. The protesters were chased away and some were packed into police vans and released beyond 200 mt from the spot. The football fans however relentlessly carried out the protests and shouted slogans till late evening, braving intermittent rain.

Various doctors’ organisations and medical students from institutions across the state took out a rally from Shyambazar intersection in north Kolkata on Sunday. Actors and directors from the Bengali movie industry also took out a procession from the same spot in the evening.

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