Junior doctors heading RG Kar agitation face corruption complaint; summoned
he cybercrime branch of the Bidhan Nagar police launched the probe following a complaint Raja Ghosh, a Kolkata resident, filed last year, alleging that he did not receive any receipt for his donation
Kolkata: Several junior doctors leading the agitation since the August 9, 2024 rape and murder of a post-graduate trainee doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital have been summoned by police in connection with an allegation of diversion of funds raised for the movement.
“There are no irregularities. When we launched the movement, we used our own bank accounts to receive financial help from sympathisers of the movement. Later, we opened a dedicated account. The audit reports are being prepared,” Aniket Mahato, a junior doctor from RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, said after responding to the police summon.
The cybercrime branch of the Bidhan Nagar police launched the probe following a complaint Raja Ghosh, a Kolkata resident, filed last year, alleging that he did not receive any receipt for ₹5,000 that he donated.
Of the seven junior doctors the Bidhan Nagar police summoned on Saturday, Mahato was the only one who faced the investigators through video conference. The others told the police that they were on duty.
No Bidhan Nagar police official commented on the investigation.
Ghosh told the media on Sunday: “Thousands of citizens came forward seeking justice for the 31-year-old victim. They took part in demonstrations and donated money to help the cause. How do we know that this money was not diverted to personal accounts? That’s why I filed a complaint with the Bidhan Nagar police and forwarded it to several government departments. Let there be a probe.”
All the accused are members of the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front.
HT reported on January 27 that the West Bengal Medical Council had asked RG Kar Medical College and Hospital to state whether Kinjal Nanda, one of the prominent faces of the movement, has been skipping classes and duty.
The Council sent a letter to the hospital asking whether Nanda’s attendance at classes and the hospital wards met the mandatory requirement of 80% and whether he frequently took leave, health department officials said.
The Council made the move against Nanda days after the state police initiated a probe against Asfaqullah Naiya, another trainee doctor from the same hospital and a face of the movement, based on an allegation that he was wrongly described as an MD (doctor of medicine) in a pamphlet released by organisers of a health camp in Hooghly district last year. The police raided his home in a South 24 Parganas district village.
HT reported on February 6 that four senior government doctors seen in the forefront of the agitation have also been accused by the medical council of disrupting its operations.
Various organisations of senior doctors have united under the Joint Platform of Doctors, West Bengal. The Joint Platform and the junior doctors joined a citizen’s rally in Kolkata on Sunday which marked the 32nd birth anniversary of the victim. Her parents also appeared at the gathering briefly.
“The government’s pressure tactics cannot crush the movement,” Dr Punyabrata Gun, a convenor of the Joint Platform, said during the rally.
In an apparent bid to counter the movement, the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress recently revived its Progressive Health Association with cabinet minister Shashi Panja, a doctor, as president. Several TMC legislators and Parliament members are members of various committees in the association which held the first meeting of its executive members on Saturday.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which probed the junior doctor’s rape and murder, has filed an appeal at the Calcutta high court seeking death penalty for Sanjay Roy, the only convict.
Roy, 34, a civic volunteer working for Kolkata police during the crime, was sentenced to jail for rest of life by Kolkata’s Sealdah court on January 18.
The CBI has not yet framed charges against Sandip Ghosh, the former principal of RG Kar Medical College, and Abhijit Mondal, the local Tala police station’s former officer-in-charge. Both were arrested by CBI on September 14 and charged with tampering with evidence related to the August 9 crime.
Ghosh is also facing charges of financial corruption in a separate case.