Who spread suicide claim? Kolkata doctor’s colleagues say story originated in ex-principal’s office
Times of India | 21 August 2024
Police detain an ABVP activist during a protest in Kolkata on Tuesday KOLKATA: Colleagues of the 31-year-old postgraduate resident doctor whose body was found in the seminar hall of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata on Aug 9 alleged that the hospital authorities’ initial claim that she died by suicide originated in then principal Sandip Ghosh’s office.
They questioned why the hospital authorities misled them when the death was a clear case of rape and murder.Supreme Court also raised concerns Tuesday about the hospital’s suicide narrative.
Hospital insiders disclosed that the decision to initially classify the death as a suicide was made in the office of Ghosh, who was later removed from his position following widespread protests and accusations of a cover-up.
According to the victim’s parents, they received two calls on the morning of Aug 9.
The first call at 10.53am from the hospital’s assistant superintendent Dwaipayan Biswas informed them that their daughter had fallen ill. Shortly afterward, a second call informed them that she had died by suicide. This news came as a shock to the family and colleagues, as signs of abuse and murder were reportedly evident on the doctor’s body.
The colleagues expressed outrage over the handling of the case, particularly the misleading information given to her parents. “Tell-all signs of sexual abuse and murder were all over her body. Why were the parents misled?” asked one of her fellow postgraduate trainees. Assistant superintendent Biswas had not acted on his own, another colleague said, alleging that “there was a plan to pass this off as a suicide”.
Colleagues also questioned the two-hour delay between the discovery of the body around 9am and when the parents were informed.
Ghosh had reportedly convened a meeting in the same seminar hall where the body was found, with at least two outsiders and several senior hospital officials. This meeting took place before the inspector in-charge of RG Kar hospital outpost was informed around 10.10am.
While Calcutta HC directed Ghosh to go on long leave, other hospital officials, including then medical superintendent Sanjay Bashist and the respiratory medicine department head Arunabha Dutta Chowdhury, have been transferred. “We are for a neutral probe and we also want the truth to emerge,” Bashist had said before he was transferred to CNMC.