He Rape and murder on August 9 The case of the 31-year-old doctor, a postgraduate student at Kolkata’s state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, has highlighted a series of unnatural deaths at the 138-year-old institute in recent years.
“In 2020, the body of a female graduate student was found on the ground outside the same emergency building where the body of the August 9 victim was found in the third-floor seminar room of the chest department,” a doctor at the hospital said on condition of anonymity.
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“Police and hospital authorities claimed that the student committed suicide. Although no suicide note was found on the victim, it was said that driven by depression, she jumped from the sixth floor,” the doctor added.
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“There were no protests in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The matter died down within a few days,” said Dr Suvankar Chatterjee, an alumnus of RG Kar Medical College who is now leading an agitation on behalf of the All India Democratic Students Organisation, a left-wing group, demanding justice for the August 9 victim.
In 2003, a 23-year-old college student died after falling from the hostel building. He was also declared to have committed suicide. Police said after an investigation that the student, a resident of Suri in Birbhum district, had apparently injected sedatives into his veins and then cut them with surgical scissors before jumping from the hostel roof. The victim’s classmates claimed that he used to keep himself aloof most of the time.
“Investigators searched his belongings but found nothing that could indicate why the student died by suicide,” KL Tamta, the then deputy commissioner (headquarters) of the Kolkata police, told the media in 2003.
“There was no agitation after the 2003 incident, but the hospital was shaken in 2001 when another student, Soumitra Biswas, died of unnatural death. The body was found hanging by the neck inside his room in the hostel. I was a student at that time,” said Dr Chatterjee.
“There has been a lot of talk that Biswas was killed for protesting against a group of students and staff at the hospital who were involved in all kinds of illegal activities, including shooting adult videos in some specific rooms of the hostel. Sex workers were hired and brought to the premises for this,” said a doctor currently working at the hospital on condition of anonymity.
“Some powerful leaders of the then ruling CPI(M) protected the gangsters. The investigation did not make much headway and Biswas was declared to have committed suicide,” the doctor added.
“A lot of people are digging up the past and seeking an inquiry into these incidents. I think we should focus on the August 9 victim and the CBI probe or else the people’s movement, which is gaining momentum, will go astray,” said Dr Koushik Chaki, a member of the West Bengal Doctors’ Forum.
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