Evidence against 1 for rape-murder, larger conspiracy under probe: CBI
Times of India | 18 September 2024
Kolkata: CBI on Tuesday told a special court in Kolkata that till now it had evidence against one suspect in the Aug 9 RG Kar Medical College rape and murder case but was still probing the gang-rape angle. It also said it suspected that former RG Kar principal Sandip Ghosh and former Tala police station OC Abhijit Mandal were part of a "larger conspiracy" but failed to provide any evidence to corroborate its claims.The duo has been charged with conspiracy along with destruction of evidence in the rape-murder case.
Asked seven times by magistrate Debashis Dey to show "one piece of evidence to corroborate that they (Ghosh and Mandal) had conspired in the rape and murder", CBI claimed there was possibility of Ghosh acting under "the direction of some person involved in the larger conspiracy" of destruction of evidence and attempt to hush up the matter.
"We cannot directly say that they were involved in the rape and murder. But we are not ruling that out. A lot of versions are there and we need to unravel the truth," the CBI counsel said.
The agency, which is awaiting forensic reports from AIIMS, New Delhi and other CFSL laboratories, argued that the FIR in the case was lodged 14 hours after Tala police received information of the body of a 31-year-old PGT doctor being found at the hospital. Besides, search-and-seizure was completed even before the filing of the FIR. It claimed such attempts to flout norms pointed at a possibility of "trying to delay the proceedings".
Asked specifically by the judge again at this point if CBI had "found anything which says they (Ghosh and Mandal) were actively or passively involved", the CBI lawyers argued that the agency had retrieved CCTV footage from Tala police station and call record details of the two accused. "Both the accused persons initiated the investigation with an attempt to vitiate the evidence and vital data related to the case. The agency is also extracting the data stored in their mobile phones," the CBI said and demanded cross-verification of their statements and confrontation with other accused "to unearth the conspiracy".
Mandal's lawyer Tirthankar Roy claimed he had appeared before the agency nine times and the CBI's allegations point to dereliction of duty by an official. "A criminal conspiracy takes place prior to an offence. Is there any scope to presume that there was a meeting of minds with other accused persons?" he argued. The judge observed that any dereliction of duty calls for a separate FIR, but the linking the duo with the rape and murder was a grave allegation that should be backed by evidence.
CBI argued that CCTV footage of RG Kar Medical College had been seized and examined by CFSL, Kolkata nut further custodial interrogation based on the CCTV footage of Tala police station was also required. The judge sent the duo to CBI custody till September 20.