On Monday, 19th August, a shocking revelation allegedly exposing the Kolkata Police came to the fore in the rape and murder case of the 31-year-old doctor in the RG Kar Medical College. The father of the girl alleged that the Kolkata Police hurried the cremation process of the victim girl. He also expressed dissatisfaction with the West Bengal government’s handling of the incident.
“There were three bodies at the crematorium, but our daughter’s body was cremated first. The Chief Minister is talking about providing justice, but attempts are being…not satisfied with Mamata Banerjee and have refused to take any compensation,” the father of the girl was quoted as saying.
However, the same was confirmed by the crematorium staff while talking to the media. The manager of the crematorium where the girl was cremated was tracked down by the Times Now team who eventually exposed that it was the police who said that there was a chance of early decomposition of the dead body, demanding early cremation.
Biggest Clincher in #Kolkata Case
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) August 19, 2024
After parents claim 'Hurried cremation', #TIMESNOW tracks crematorium staff.
There were a lot of policemen with the body (of the victim); the area had become very congested… We were told that there is a chance of the body getting… pic.twitter.com/feBQuh7pCr
“There were a lot of policemen with the body (of the victim); the area had become very congested… We were told that there was a chance of the body getting decomposed… Police asked us if it can be done earlier (cremation of victim’s body),” the manager added. He also added that the parents of the girl also did not object to the request of the victim to get cremated before the two other dead bodies were already scheduled for cremation.
The incident has again raised questions against the Kolkata Police, accused by the BJP of hiding the evidence and crippling the investigation. Concerns have also been raised against CM Mamata Banerjee who is further accused of playing politics over the horrific incident.
A Tale of Two Cremations.
— Shiv Aroor (@ShivAroor) August 19, 2024
In 2020, a TMC delegation rushed to Hathras, U.P to RIGHTLY agitate against Yogi Govt’s forced night-time cremation of a gangrape victim.
Today the Trinamool Govt stands accused of PRECISELY the same thing in Kolkata. pic.twitter.com/hbjGbhoQea
It is important to note that the same Mamata Banerjee in the Hathras rape case that happened against a 19-year-old Dalit girl in the year 2020 had raised questions against alleged forced cremation on 30th September that year. As per the reports, the Hathras rape took place on 14th September, and the victim succumbed to her injuries on 29th September. It is believed that she was forcibly cremated at 2.25 am on 30th September without her parent’s consent in the police presence.
The family then had told the high court in an additional affidavit that they wanted to conduct the woman’s funeral in the morning, and wanted to bury the body instead of cremating it because she was unmarried. West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee at that time also had chosen to play politics over the incident by claiming that the BJP govt in Uttar Pradesh and at the centre was deliberately torturing the victim and her family. She had accused the BJP of torturing Dalits, minority communities, and farmers.
Leading the protest march in 2020 against the incident, CM Banerjee had said that BJP was the biggest pandemic in the country. “The biggest pandemic is the BJP party. The BJP is a pandemic of atrocities and I will support every effort to stop these atrocities. What do you (BJP) think, your police will not let us meet the family. I can meet the family and you won’t even know. The daughter of Hathras is our daughter. If we are to brighten the country’s future, we have to stand beside Dalits and minority communities… Today, I am not a Hindu, I am a Dalit,” she was quoted as saying.
West Bengal: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee participates in the protest march being held from Birla Planetarium to Gandhi Murti in Kolkata over Hathras incident. pic.twitter.com/OWkjwtNbSM
— ANI (@ANI) October 3, 2020
She had also claimed that the BJP had brought shame to the country.
However, it is crucial to note that CM Mamata Banerjee has always downplayed such gruesome incidents when happened in the state of West Bengal. In the current case, she is accused by the BJP of shielding the victims and then dramatizing her so-called stand in favour of the victim by conducting ‘protests’ for justice. The state authorities are also believed to have directed the Kolkata Police to ‘get the case settled and keep shut’.
Earlier, the state had resorted to slut-shaming, character assassination and even downplaying cases of sexual assault in West Bengal by labelling allegations as a ‘political conspiracy’. Another such example reported was that of the party’s reaction to the Park Street rape case.
An Anglo-Indian woman, by the name of Suzette Jordan, was raped in a moving car by five men on February 6, 2012, when she was returning home from Park Street in Kolkata. Soon after the news surfaced, TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee had absolved the accused of all charges. She had dubbed the incident as ‘shajano ghotona‘ (concocted incident) that was allegedly ‘designed to malign the government.’
While speaking to a news channel, TMC MP Kakoli Ghose Dhastidar cast aspersions on the character of the victim and also ruled out the rape angle. She stated, “If you are referring to the Park Street case, see that’s a different case altogether. It’s not at all a rape case. It was a misunderstanding between two people in a professional dealing between the lady and her client.”
At the same time, the then Transport Minister had also questioned the victim’s character and called the complaint fake. 3 years later in 2015, a Kolkata Court upheld the rape charges in the Park Street case and found accused Nasir Khan, Ruman Khan, and Sumit Bajaj guilty.
During another rape case in Burdwan’s Katwa in the same year, Mamata Banerjee again dismissed the rape allegations, even before the investigation was concluded. “A political party is doing all this, shouting rape. They are playing this drama. Harmader diye natok shajachhe jatey Banglar nam kharap hochhe (They are staging an act to give a bad name to West Bengal),” she was heard saying.
In 2013, during a debate in the West Bengal legislative assembly about the rising cases of rapes in the State, the CM had insinuated that it was due to an increase in the population of the State. She also blamed modernization, the increase in shopping malls, and multiplexes for rising rape cases.
RG Kar Medical College Rape and Murder Case
On 9th August, a semi-nude body of a female PG trainee doctor was found inside the seminar hall of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata. It is a government-run hospital. Following the discovery, her father had said that she was raped and killed inside the hospital, and efforts were underway to “conceal the truth.”
The doctor had dinner with four of her coworkers at 2:30 am that night after seeing Neeraj Chopra’s javelin throw event during the Paris Olympics. Afterwards, she went to the seminar hall to relax. The main accused in the case, Sanjay Roy, had access to every department as he worked at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital police outpost. He was not affiliated with the institution but often went there. CCTV evidence shows him entering the premises where the doctor was discovered, which led to his arrest on 10th August. He returned home after committing the horrifying act and slept in late. Roy also cleaned the outfit he wore to remove any evidence. The police recovered his bloodstained shoes during a search.
The Doctor was brutally tortured before she was suffocated to death, according to the post-mortem report. The four-page report stated that she had been strangled and that “perverted sexuality” and “genital torture” had resulted in serious wounds in her private parts.
The Doctor’s thyroid cartilage was also shattered. A source stated that the rape and murder occurred on 9th August most likely between 3 and 5 am. Her lips, fingers, left leg, and abdomen were all covered with injuries.
According to sources, the Doctor’s head was slammed against a wall or the floor resulting in severe injuries, and her mouth and nose were squeezed shut to stop the victim from shouting. The accused had reportedly beaten her up as she attempted to defend herself and resist. He then raped and killed her. According to the autopsy, the girl’s hands and face had cuts on them. Shards of glass from her spectacles broke and got into her eyes following an intense blow. The initial postmortem report ruled out suicide and stated that the trainee doctor had been sexually assaulted before being murdered.
