India’s federal probe agency Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday night arrested Sandip Ghosh, the former Principal of Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, where a PG trainee doctor was raped and murdered brutally last month, triggering a nationwide protest. Apparently Ghosh was arrested on charges of financial irregularities and corruption.
Ghosh has been summoned to the CGO complex almost every day ever since the CBI undertook the investigation into the horrific incident.
According to reports, he has been arrested by the CBI’s anti-corruption branch over the financial irregularities and corruption charges at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital during his tenure as the pricipal of the organisation.
Earlier, the CBI raided his house in connection with the financial irregularities at the hospital along with 15 other locations across the city.
The CBI started a probe into the corruption charges against Ghosh based on information by Akhtar Ali, the whistleblower, who had raised this matter in the Calcutta High Court, after which the Kolkata Police’s special investigation team had recorded his statement.
Akhtar Ali worked at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital for 16 years. He began as assistant superintendent in grade 2, went to grade 1, and became Deputy Superintendent.
“Before Sandeep Ghosh came, this was the number one college in eastern India. It is a 100-year-old college. I have exposed a lot of scams. The first scam was to make students fail. They used to extort money from them, those who did not listen, and some students used to collect this money,” Akhtar Ali had alleged in various media bytes.
“They used to make junior students drink alcohol and make them protest, whenever it came to Sandeep Ghosh’s transfer. The illegal activities include smuggling of bodies, biomedical waste scam. The complaints went to the higher levels including vigilance, but nothing happened,” Akhtar Ali said.
Ghosh has also been accused of selling unclaimed dead bodies.
The Supreme Court as well as the Calcutta High Court has repeatedly questioned why Ghosh, being the principal of the medical college when the brutal crime took place, did not lodge a police complaint.
Ghosh, who faced the ire for alleged mismanagement and financial irregularities at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, resigned from his post facing protests from the medical students.
Though he had resigned, the Mamata Banerjee government had controversially appointed him to a similar post at Calcutta National Medical College within a few hours.
“He is a criminal, not a doctor. He’s ruined many students’ lives…. He runs a mafia raj. He has ruined many lives, taught students to consume alcohol and he even sold unclaimed dead bodies and tampered with death records and removed the registers so that nobody comes to know about it,” Ali told Times Now.
Meanwhile, junior doctors protesting against the crime and demanding justice for the same, were seen celebrating the arrest.
However, they said they will continue their protest until justice is delivered.
The key suspect in the rape and murder case of the junior doctor so far has been identified as Sanjay Roy, a civic volunteer, who was seen on the hospital’s CCTV near the crime scene, according to police versions.
Sanjay Roy, Sandeep Ghosh, and some doctors whose fingerprints were taken from the seminar hall, where the junior doctor’s body was found, have been made to undergo polygraph tests.
The CCTV footage shows Sanjay Roy entering the hospital at 1.03 on the fateful night when the incident took place, media reports said.
During interrogation, the police had shown him the CCTV evidence, after which Sanjay Roy admitted to the crime, media reports said.
