RG Kar seminar hall crowd video goes viral. Outside cordoned crime scene, say cops

RG Kar seminar hall crowd video goes viral. Outside cordoned crime scene, say cops

Times of India 

Kolkata : A 43-second video that went viral on social media purportedly showing some close confidants of former RG Kar Medical College & Hospital principal Sandip Ghosh as well as police at the seminar hall after the body of a PGT doctor was found on Aug 9 morning triggered allegations about laxity in securing the place where the crime had occurred. Kolkata Police later clarified that though the site of the video was indeed the seminar hall where the crime had occurred, the spot where the people had assembled was beyond the 40-ft section that was cordoned off. The rape-mursecure beyond the view-cutter, cops said. 

However, an officer said the police had arrived at the scene 40 minutes after the body was found at 9.30 am “There was a 40-minute delay in alerting police. The moment we came to know, our officers ran upstairs and cordoned off the place with white curtains that are used in a hospital as view cutters,” said another officer at Lalbazar. Among those visible in the video are forensic medicine & toxicology department demonstrator Debashis Som; lawyer Santanu De who is a close associate of then principal Sandip Ghosh (De has claimed that he was present at the outpatient department and went to the spot after he heard the news) and CNMC data entry operator Prasun Chattopadhyay, also known to be close to Ghosh. 

At Lalbazar on Monday evening, DC central Indira Mukherjee said while all of them were present in the seminar hall, it was beyond the section that had the body and had been cordoned off to prevent contamination of crime scene. “The seminar hall is a 51ft × 32ft room. When the body was discovered, hospital curtains were used to cordon off a 40ft × 32 ft area. The only persons allowed here were investigators, forensic experts, cops, forensic photographers, men assigned to shift the body, victims’ parents and a relative. 

All who can be seen in the video were standing in the remaining 11 ft × 32 ft area. The place of occurrence where the body was found wasn’t tampered at all,” she added. According to her, among those present outside the cordoned zone included hospital officials, policemen, junior doctors, Ghosh’s lawyer and the victim’s family members. “This area was segregated in the conference hall as junior doctors were not letting the body to be taken out. They wrote multiple demands while standing in the hall and we made room for them to write down the demands which kept changing from time to time. We also called the medical officer from the emergency to the hall where he issued the death certificate'' said Banerjee. 

According to police, only one of the eight doors through which the seminar hall can be accessed was open that day. Cops said the parents first came to the hospital around 12 noon and sat at the office of HOD. “Around 1pm, one of our officers went outside and was told that they were there. We called them and made them sit within the 11 feet area. They wanted to see the body but then forensic officials were inside the cordoned area. So we made them wait for seven minutes after which they went inside. They sat on a chair in front of the body near the second view cutter for two minutes. They then came out and sat within the 11 feet area again for next three hours,” said the officer. The victim’s father contested this. . He said they were made to wait elsewhere and not in a part of seminar hall for three and a half hours after they reached hospital around 1 pm. “When we were allowed to enter the crime scene around 3.30 pm, there were no barriers,” he said.