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‘Will shut hospital’: High Court slams Kolkata lapses
Calcutta High Court criticized Bengal government and police for failing to prevent vandalism at RG Kar Medical College after a doctor was raped and murdered.
An irate Calcutta high court on Friday pulled up the West Bengal government and state police over vandalism at a top hospital where a young doctor was raped and murdered last week, calling it an “absolute failure” of state machinery and warning that it could “close down” the public facility in the face of glaring mismanagement.
The court’s rebuke came on a day when Kolkata’s police commissioner Vineet Goyal admitted that the police were caught off-guard at midnight on Thursday when hundreds of people smashed through police barricades to storm RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.
The division bench of chief justice TS Sivagnanam and justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya, which ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take over the case from the Kolkata Police on August 13, questioned why the authorities did not take steps in advance to prevent the rampaging mob.
“When so much commotion is going on, you should have cordoned off the entire area. The police usually have intelligence on these matters. If 7,000 people were to gather, it is hard to believe that state police did not know. This is an absolute failure of state machinery. Could this vandalism have been prevented is the question. Who did it comes later,” the court said, questioning why orders were not issued to prevent the unlawful assembly of people around the hospital.
The court also questioned the state government about the “urgency” of renovation work near the spot where the 31-year-old doctor was found dead on August 9. Activists and opposition parties had alleged that the renovation work, ordered hours after the Central Bureau of Investigation took over the case on August 13, was meant to destroy evidence.
“What was the urgency? ...You go to any district court complex, see if ladies have any restrooms, I say this with responsibility. What has the PWD done? ... We’ll shift patients to another hospital and close the (RG Kar) hospital,” chief justice Sivagnanam said.
The body of the second-year postgraduate student, who was raped and murdered inside a seminar hall of the hospital, was found on Friday morning. The crime took place at the third-floor hall of the chest department and police later said that multiple lacerations and wounds were found on her body.
A 31-year-old civic volunteer with the police, Sanjay Roy, was arrested on Saturday in connection with the case and was sent to 14-day police custody. The grim crime left Kolkata stunned and prompted sweeping protests in the city even as doctors across the country struck work demanding safe working conditions.
The case also triggered a political row with the Bharatiya Janata Party accusing the state government of shielding the culprits and chief minister Mamata Banerjee blaming Left and BJP cadre for instigating violence.
The vandalism at the hospital started around 12.40am on Thursday even as tens of thousands of people gathered on the streets of Kolkata in protest. Videos, corroborated by eyewitnesses, showed people tearing through the hospital’s primary entrance, mowing down police barricades and assaulting security forces at the hospital in the Belgachhia neighbourhood of north Kolkata.
The mob, armed with cricket bats and metal rods, fanned out across the facility’s vast campus. They smashed CCTV cameras and wrecked a dais that the hospital’s doctors were using as a platform for their protests. Some groups broke into the emergency unit on the ground floor of the main building, while others made their way up to a ward on the first floor and the ENT department on the second floor, one below the crime scene.
They smashed medicine cabinets, destroyed monitors and clinical equipment, and upturned beds. Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari’s counsel argued in the court that the attack was pre-planned and people were brought in lorries, in a bid to destroy the crime scene.
Police have since arrested 20 people in connection with the vandalism, which escalated the political tussle and prompted umbrella bodies of health care providers — the Federation of Resident Doctors’ Association and the Indian Medical Association—to restart their strike.
In a press briefing, Kolkata police commissioner Goyal admitted to a “failure of assessment” on the part of the police.
“We didn’t expect the crowd before RG Kar Hospital to turn violent. If you say it is a failure of assessment, then yes, you can call it that failure of assessment...This entire protest was supposed to have been a very peaceful protest,” he said.
In its order, the high court said that it was imperative to provide safety to the medical staff working at the hospital in the aftermath of the gruesome crime and the mob rampage. It added that the police should place on record the entire sequence of events that led to the vandalism in the hospital.
“The police should place on record the entire sequence of events leading to the incident. What is more important is that the doctors working in the hospital, who are presently protesting have to be given adequate protection to discharge their duties,” it said.
Stating that the bench, on August 13, urged the doctors to consider returning to work, reminding them of their “pious obligation” towards the patients, the court said that the vandalism at the hospital will “definitely have an impact on their mindset.”
The high court asked the state to submit a reply to the allegations that the renovation work was carried out to “wipe out” evidence from the crime scene.
The government’s counsel rejected the allegation. “ All these allegations that PO (place of occurrence) has been demolished, destroyed, nothing is correct. The demolition work that happened was not near the PO,” the counselsaid.
The counsel added that the renovation work was carried out for a restroom for doctors. The court, however, questioned the timing of the move.
The bench directed the police and the administrator of the hospital to file separate affidavits narrating the “true state of affairs” at the hospital and all connected matters on August 21 when the matter will be heard again.
