West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee cannot disown the responsibility for the alleged attempt by the police and hospital authorities to destroy evidence of rape and murder of their daughter, the parents of the RG Kar hospital victim said on Saturday.
The parents were quoted by a report as saying that police and hospital authorities “attempted to shield the ‘main conspirators’ behind the crime.” They also alleged that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) “failed to bring to book all the perpetrators and overlooked the larger conspiracy aspect.”
“Everyone — Kolkata Police, the hospital administration and people’s representatives from the TMC — played an active role to hush up the ghastly incident so that truth does not come to light,” the deceased medic’s mother told a Bengali TV channel on Friday.
“The CM cannot disown the failure of the Kolkata Police, hospital and the administration,” the mother of the deceased was quoted by news agency PTI as saying.
Victim’s mother questions Mamata Banerjee
The victim’s mother reportedly said, “The CM has to explain why the crime scene could not be sealed and the evidence was tampered with by the entry of a large number of onlookers. She has to explain why from the footage of 68 people moving in the area on August 9 morning till midday, only one person Sanjay Roy was identified as the sole perpetrator of the crime?” her mother said.
She claimed while the CBI did not act on the issue of alleged suppression of facts, the state administration failed to protect a woman medic at her workplace, and later tried to hide the larger conspiracy aspect of the crime.
“These matters were not properly addressed by CBI despite our testimony to the agency,” the victim’s father added, accusing both CBI and the Kolkata Police of holding a shoddy investigation “to shield some people.”
TMC reacts
A spokesperson of Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, Kunal Ghosh, dubbed the charges as “unfortunate”.
“Those comments seem to be prompted by some forces, which want to show the TMC and the state government in poor light to defame the CM,” he was quoted by PTI as saying.
“It was the CM under whose instruction the Kolkata Police hastened up investigation immediately after the incident and arrested Sanjay Roy. She had given a week to the Kolkata Police to wrap up the probe. But, it was handed over to CBI on an order of the Calcutta High Court,” Ghosh said.
“Investigations by the state police have ensured conviction in other rape-murder cases in recent times and pronouncement of capital punishment for the convicted persons,” the TMC leader said.
What’s RG Kar rape case
The body of the 31-year-old post-graduate trainee was found in a semi-naked state in the seminar hall of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9 last year. The trial court on January 20 sentenced Sanjay Roy, the lone convict, to life imprisonment till death in the rape-murder case.