President did not have time, PM silent, RG Kar victim’s parents still vow to battle on
Telegraph | 2 March 2025
President Dorupadi Murmu has declined their request for a meeting. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not responded. But the parents of the doctor raped and murdered while on duty at the state-run RG Kar Medical College in Kolkata last year have not given up.
“We have lost everything. My daughter would have completed her MD after two months. We gave our everything to make her a doctor. We will give our everything to fight for her justice,” the mother of the 31-year-old postgraduate trainee doctor, whose gruesome murder had sparked unprecedented protests across Kolkata, Bengal and beyond, told The Telegraph Online.
“We wrote to the President of the country to seek justice for our dead daughter. They [the President’s office] replied stating we are unable to provide time owing to her busy schedule,” she said.
She said the family has also written to the prime minister, but is yet to receive a response.
On February 27, the parents visited Delhi to meet officials at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) headquarters.
“We wanted to discuss issues regarding the investigation of her death. We reached Delhi on February 27 to speak to the CBI director and we had to visit the CBI headquarters also,” the mother said.
“The same day, we received a response from the President that she does not have time to meet us. The CBI head office assured us that we will get justice, like always, to give us hope. This case has to be solved, we will get it solved.”
The postgraduate trainee doctor’s body was found in the seminar room of the hospital on August 9. The Calcutta High Court transferred the investigation to the CBI. On January 20, a court in Kolkata sentenced Sanjay Roy, a Kolkata Police civic volunteer who the city cops had arrested, for the rape and murder. The CBI had also arrested Sandip Ghosh, who was principal of the college at the time of the murder, and Avijit Modal, officer in charge of the Tala police station, for alleged destruction of evidence. The central agency failed to submit a charge sheet against the two so they Mondal was released on bail. Ghosh is still in jail because the CBI had arrested him in another case of alleged corruption at RG Kar that was also handed over to the central agency by the high court.
“Everything is political in this,” the mother of the doctor said. “We also met our Supreme Court lawyer and she also told us the same thing.
“Otherwise, how can an on-duty doctor be killed inside a hospital? There was no investigation from inside even on that day and they kept us waiting, starting with [then Kolkata Police chief] Vineet Goyal and all other police officers. They just came there to play their part as instructed,” she said,
“We waited for three hours even on that day. Can all of this happen if it's not political?”
The parents are waiting for a Supreme Court hearing due on March 17. They also hope to take the case to the high Court.
“If the President does not have time for us we will not meet her. What else can be done? We have also written to the prime minister in the past but have not heard back from him. But whatever be it we will not let the case cool down,” the mother said.
“We are alive for our daughter’s justice. Just one person being convicted is definitely not justice for us. We have also not received our daughter’s death certificate. In fact, RG Kar is not even declaring our daughter dead till now. There is no injury report, no legal papers. I do not understand how. They told us to get a special permission from Swasthya Bhawan but we will not do so. We will legally fight this in the high court.”