The West Bengal government has removed Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal from the post. He will be replaced by Manoj Verma. On August 9, junior doctors demanded the removal of the police commissioner and director of the health department in the rape-murder case of a trainee doctor at RG Kar Medical College.
Four more officials of the health department have also been transferred. Director of Medical Education Dr. Kaustuv Nayak has been made Director of Health-Family Welfare. Director of Health Services Dr. Devashish Haldar has been made OSD of Public Health. Tripurari Atharva has been elected as the Director of DEO.
Apart from this, the posts of 5 more police officers have also been changed. Javed Shamim ADG Law and Order, Vineet Goyal ADG and IG Special Task Force, Gnanwant Singh ADG and IG Intelligence Bureau, Deepak Sarkar North Collector, Abhishek Gupta CO EFR Second Battalion are names included.
A meeting was held between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and doctors on September 16. After this, Mamata said that she has accepted 3 out of 5 demands of the doctors. The Chief Minister appealed to the doctors to return to work and said that he will not take action against the protesting doctors.
However, the doctors' protest continued for the 39th day on Tuesday. They were awaiting a formal order to remove the officers and the hearing of the case in the Supreme Court today.
ED raids in hospital financial malpractice case
On the other hand, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has again conducted raids in Kolkata on Tuesday in connection with financial irregularities in RG Kar Medical College. The agency is searching multiple locations, including nursing homes.
This is the ED's third raid in a financial malpractice case. On September 6, the agency raided the house of Sandeep Ghosh, former principal of the medical college, and people associated with him. On September 12, several places were searched, including the house of Ghosh's father, Satya Prakash Ghosh.
Ghosh is accused of financial irregularities during his tenure as principal of the college. CBI arrested Ghosh on September 2 in this case. The CBI re-arrested Sandeep Ghosh along with SHO Abhijeet Mandal on September 14 on charges of tampering with evidence in the rape-murder case.
The ED raided a nursing home in Kolkata on Tuesday (September 17).
Mamata said – we accepted 99% of the demands of the doctors
The junior doctors put these five demands before the government. According to Mamata Banerjee, the first three demands have been fulfilled. Sanjay, accused of rape and murder of a trainee doctor, has been arrested. Former medical college principal Sandeep Ghosh and Tala police station SHO have been arrested on charges of tampering with evidence. Now the Kolkata Police Commissioner has been removed from the post.
Mamata said, 'We have accepted 99% of the doctors' demands, because they are our younger brothers. 42 people signed the minutes of the meeting on behalf of junior doctors, while Chief Secretary Manoj Pant signed on behalf of the government. I think the meeting was positive. I think doctors believe the same, otherwise why would they sign the meeting minutes?
Mamata Banerjee has also accepted the demand to upgrade hospital infrastructure like CCTV, washrooms and allocated Rs 100 crore for this. Apart from this, Mamata said that Director of Health Services and Director of Medical Education will be appointed on appropriate posts. We cannot insult them. He is not at fault in this matter.
The doctors took along a stenographer to record the conversation
The junior doctors reached Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's residence in Kolkata on Monday for a meeting.
A delegation of 35 junior doctors arrived for the meeting on Monday evening after four failed attempts to resolve the deadlock that has been going on for over a month.
The meeting was initially scheduled to meet at 5 pm, but started at 6.50 pm and continued till around 9 pm. After this, there was a discussion on the meeting till about half past eleven. The doctor also took two stenographers along to record the conversation.
Earlier, the Bengal government had called the doctors for a meeting four times, but due to demands like live telecast and videography, the talks could not take place.
Junior doctors have been protesting continuously for 38 days after the rape-murder of a doctor in RG Kar Medical College. The Supreme Court also said that no action would be taken against the doctors if they end their protest and return to work.
Supreme Court said- End the strike, otherwise action will be taken On September 9, while hearing the Kolkata rape-murder case, the Supreme Court ordered the junior doctors to return to work by 5 pm on September 10. The court also warned of strict action if the order is not followed. The matter will be heard again today.
The CBI will file another status report in the Supreme Court today. In the previous hearing, the investigating agency had presented the first report. The report revealed that some documents related to the case are missing. On that the court said that this case seems wrong. The court ordered the state government to produce the missing documents in the court.
2 big things about CBI's first status report…
- The state government shared only 27 minutes of CCTV video of the day of the incident with the investigating agency. The state government said – some parts of the video have been given. There were some technical glitches.
- When the trainee doctor's body was found, she was half naked. The government conducted an inquiry into CFSL in Bengal. While the CBI has decided to send the samples to AIIMS and outside forensic labs.
What has happened in the CBI investigation so far?
September 16: CBI interrogates Sandeep Ghosh and Abhijit Mandal On Monday, the CBI simultaneously interrogated Sandeep Ghosh, former principal of RG Car Hospital, and Abhijit Mandal, SHO of Tala Police Station. A CBI official said that he was asked questions while sitting face to face.
He was asked what he did after hearing the news of the doctor's death, why there was unnecessary delay in registering the FIR and why the postmortem was conducted without a formal FIR. He was also asked about several phone conversations between the two when the police started investigating the case. The official said that the interrogation is likely to continue till late night.
Apart from this, a report by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) has come out, which has said that Sandeep Ghosh's answers regarding the incident have been found to be misleading. Sandeep Ghosh was subjected to polygraph test and voice analysis.
September 14: CBI arrests former principal of RG Kar Hospital On September 14, the CBI arrested Sandeep Ghosh, former principal of RG Kar College and Hospital, and Abhijit Mandal, SHO of the police station, in the Kolkata rape-murder case. According to sources, both are accused of tampering with evidence.
Abhijeet Mandal was posted as Station House Officer (SHO) in Tala Police Station. Both were sent to CBI custody till September 17.
So far three people have been arrested in the RG tax case. The next day after the incident, the Kolkata Police arrested the accused Sanjay Roy.
A case of financial irregularities was registered against Ghosh on August 24. The CBI has taken this action on the orders of the Calcutta High Court. Following this, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) suspended the membership of Sandeep Ghosh on 28 August.
September 5: Probe reveals- Ghosh ordered renovations the day after the incident On September 5, a CBI investigation revealed that Sandeep Ghosh had ordered the renovation of a room adjacent to the seminar hall the day after the rape-murder of the trainee doctor. The body of the trainee doctor was found in the seminar hall on the morning of August 9.
According to sources, the CBI has received documents which confirm that Sandeep Ghosh had written to the state Public Works Department (PWD) on August 10 to renovate the rooms and toilets adjacent to the seminar hall. This permission letter is also signed by Ghosh.
The PWD staff started renovating the rooms adjacent to the seminar hall. However, the students of the college started a massive protest over the matter, due to which the renovation work was stopped there.
Investigating officials say the renovation letter shows that Ghosh was in a hurry to get the job done, so the document could help link the rape-murder case and the financial irregularities case at RG Kar College.
A picture of the renovation work started near the seminar hall of RG Kar Medical College on the evening of 13th August.
CBI probe exposes financial irregularities…
- Sandeep Ghosh introduced the interview system for appointment of medical house staff. However, there was no panel of hospital interviewers. The final marks of the interview were released before the appointment. Ghosh is also accused of not appointing many qualified trainee doctors.
- Sandeep Ghosh was stationed at Murshidabad Medical College between 2016 and 2018. Since then he knew Biplav and Suman. Ghosh along with his security guards Biplav and Suman ran a network of corruption.
- After Ghosh became Principal of RG Kar Medical College, he called Biplab and Suman to Kolkata. He received several tenders for the hospital from both the vendors. Ghosh's guard was also contracting with vendors to sell hospital biomedical vests.
- Biplab ran many companies including Tara Traders, Baba Loknath, Tiyasha Enterprises. He used to apply for hospital tenders in the name of all these companies. So that there is competition in the market for tenders. In which only one company was getting the tender.
- The CBI has also found many flaws in the manner in which tenders were awarded to Biplab companies. The CBI said that work order letters were written to several college officials, but these letters were never handed over to them. This means that other officials were not included in the tender process.
- According to the agency, Ghosh's guard wife Nargis's company Ishaan Cafe got the canteen contract at the hospital. Sandeep Ghosh also returned the non-refundable caution money to the guard's wife's company.
Image Credit: (Divya-Bhaskar): Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).
