Did doctor pay price for knowing too much, ask parents & colleagues
Times of India | 18 August 2024
KOLKATA: Did the 31-year-old PGT doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital know something she was not supposed to? Did she have to pay the price for knowing those "secrets"? Was the rape and murder planned to silence her?
These are some of the questions raised by her parents and colleagues, who have also been insisting that police volunteer Sanjoy Roy, the only person arrested so far, could be "only a small fry or even a scapegoat and that real culprits are yet to be apprehended".
Details that police have so far pieced together from the deceased doctor's diary and from her parents indicated that she was under tremendous stress and work pressure the last few weeks.
Being a second-year PGT doctor, she had already spent over a year at the government medical college and hospital. At such institutes, it is common for junior doctors to work 36 hours at a stretch. She wrote about the pressures in a diary.
"We suspect it was not a simple case of rape and murder or that she was an accidental victim. She was targeted. How did the civic volunteer know she was in the seminar hall alone at that time? He could be part of a plot hatched by big fish," said a colleague.
Others hinted at a medicine "racket". "There are murmurs of a possible drug siphoning racket in her department that she was trying to expose. There is a reason for us to suspect this as she was upright," said another colleague.
Several colleagues said "punishment overwork" was an "SOP", perfected under the watch of the previous management of RG Kar, led by former principal Sandip Ghosh. For faculty members who did not toe Ghosh's line, it would mean transfer, and for MBBS students, failing in exams.
She learnt about something she was not supposed to, doc’s parents ‘told cops’
Some RG Kar Medical College and Hospital insiders said the PG trainee doctor was extremely hard working and was focussed on her career. She always wanted to be a doctor and chose medicine, though she had also cracked engineering entrance exam as well. She was elated when she secured a PG seat at RG Kar to study chest medicine.
On August 9, after being informed about their daughter’s death, the woman’s parents had told police that she had spoken to them about tremendous work pressure. From her diary, it was evident that some colleagues were dumping a lot of work on her.
Before the case was transferred to CBI, the parents had reportedly told police their daughter might have learnt about something in the department that she was not supposed to. Colleagues and officials also pointed at numerous malpractices at the hospital and said anyone who dared stand up against the irregularities were “meted out some form of punishment”.