RG Kar on boil, students hold back PG trainee’s body for 10 hrs
Times of India | 10 August 2024
Kolkata: R G Kar Medical College is on the boil again after a second year post-graduate trainee (PGT) was found dead under mysterious circumstances in the hospital during her duty hours around 7.30 am on Friday. While her fellow PGTs, interns, house staff and MBBS students did not let the body be taken away for autopsy till the conditions they had set for the post-mortem and inquiry were met, various organizations, including political wings, also stormed into the medical college to protest the death.
The body could finally be taken away for autopsy around 5.30 pm.
“We could smell the rat when the college authority tried to discard it as a case of suicide whereas there are all tell-tale signs of sexual abuse and murder. We will not rest till we are convinced that the right kind of inquiry and autopsy is conducted,” said a PGT.
The body of the second-year chest medicine PGT, who was on night duty, was found inside a seminar hall of the department. While the junior doctors had assembled right in front of the hall to prevent the police from taking the body, various doctor organisations laid siege to the hospital and protested outside the emergency building.
“This is a spine-chilling incident and clear case of murder which the hospital authority is trying to brush off as a suicide. We demand the autopsy to be conducted by doctors from other hospitals which has to be video-graphed. During the regime of the current principal, there have been various untoward incidents. He should be removed immediately,” said surgery professor Manas Gumta, former secretary of Association of Health Service Doctors (AHSD), West Bengal.
Many women PGTs and MBBS students said they were feeling unsafe.
“This incident has made us scared. If this could happen to a senior how can we feel safe inside the campus,” said an MBBS student.
The state-run medical college has been in the news for wrong reasons on many occasions which had prompted some students to demand the principal’s removal. Despite being transferred twice, principal Sandip Ghosh was reinstated on both occasions. The last controversy was regarding the ragging of undergraduate students in the Boys’ Hostel at Maniktala.
“The 11-member internal inquiry panel formed to probe the incident has two interns who are accused in the ragging case. Both are close to the principal. How can we trust that this committee will probe the incident fairly,” said a junior doctor.
Demanding a fair probe, members of various organisations, including Medical Service Centre, Service Doctors AIDSO, West Bengal Doctors’ Forum and AHSD, staged protests on the hospital campus. Later, Joint Platform of Doctors also joined the movement and said they would continue the protest till they are satisfied with the probe outcome. Members of BJP also showed up for some time.