Kolkata (TIP)- The disgraced former administration of the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital had lied thrice to the rape-murder victim’s family, audio clips of recorded conversations between hospital authorities and the victim’s parents, which surfaced on Thursday, August 29, suggest. The first of these three calls — made over a span of eight minutes — informed the family that she was ill, the second said she was critical and the third, that she appeared to have died by suicide.
The first call was made at 10.53am on Aug 9, more than an hour after Sumit Roy Tapadar, the hospital’s assistant professor of respiratory medicine, had alerted the Tala police station, saying a 31-year-old intern had been found dead on campus.
Sandip Ghosh, the former principal, has told CBI that he learned of the incident from Tapadar at 10.30am.
The calls — recorded by the victim’s father — have gone viral.
Two of the three calls — the first and the third — had been from Sucharita Sarkar, the hospital’s non-medical assistant superintendent. The second call was made by the victim’s father to her. Sarkar, who was questioned by CBI and Kolkata Police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT), did not respond to TOI’s calls and texts. In her statement to CBI and the cops, she claimed she called the family “under instructions” from the hospital’s head of respiratory medicine, Arunabha Dutta Chowdhury, because they had feared that the victim’s family would not be able to bear the shock.
CBI sources said Sarkar told them she had blurted out “suicide” in her nervousness.
This attempt to mislead the family had prompted the victim’s parents to allege a “cover-up”.
“During each call, a woman provided conflicting information about my daughter’s condition,” the father said on Thursday.
The parents, however, claimed that they did not know how the audio clips went viral. According to the parents, the first two calls offered varying explanations for their daughter’s situation, but it was during the third call that the caller identified herself as an assistant superintendent of the hospital. “In this final call, she told us that our daughter might have died by suicide, a statement that had added to our distress and suspicion regarding the true circumstances of her death,” the father said.
The audio clips are a part of the probe docket handed over by police to CBI. The first call came at 10.53am and lasted 32 seconds. “Can you come immediately?” the caller is heard telling the father, saying his daughter was ill, but without elaborating. When he asked her repeatedly what sort of illness she had suffered, the caller is heard saying, “Doctors will tell you that once you come. We have gathered your number and called you.”
The second call was made by the father of the victim within five minutes. It is 18 seconds long. “We have taken your daughter to the emergency room. She is critical. Please come fast,” the caller said, hanging up. The victim’s mother was heard saying that her daughter was on duty. The third call came from the hospital within three minutes of the second, where the caller said the trainee doc had perhaps died by suicide. “She has committed suicide perhaps…. We are in front of everyone at the hospital. Please come fast,” the caller said. This call was the longest, lasting 56 seconds.