Will seek death penalty for accused: Mamata on murder of woman doctor

R.G. Kar Hospital is a stone's throw from Shyambazar five-point crossing in north Kolkata, one of the busiest in the city. From patients to relatives, the entire hospital remains crowded even at night.

However, on these same premises, a woman postgraduate trainee doctor was raped and murdered in the early hours of Friday morning, her brutalised body recovered from one of the hospital's seminar halls, in a crime that apparently left no witnesses.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday asserted that her government would would seek the death penalty for the accused in the alleged assault and murder. She also offered to transfer the investigation to the CBI should the circumstances so dictate.

However, confusion persists over the identity of the accused, with multiple reports emerging that the perpetrator is a civic volunteer of Kolkata Police. Arrested with the help of CCTV footage and sent to 14-day police custody for the time being, he has reportedly confessed to the crime, which he allegedly committed while drunk.

The incident has sent shockwaves through the state, prompting the administration to rush the city police chief and health secretary to the spot. At a press conference held at the city police headquarters today, a visibly annoyed police commissioner Vineet Goyal attempted to deflect questions relating to the identity of the accused, without actually confirming if he was indeed a civic volunteer.  

The initial post-mortem report of the trainee doctor indicated that she was murdered after being sexually assaulted, police said. It also ruled out suicide, they said, adding that a case has now been registered at the Tala police station, though the investigation is being conducted by the Kolkata Police's detective department.

"This is definitely not a case of suicide; the woman was murdered following sexual assault," a police officer told PTI, which has a copy of the initial autopsy report.

According to the four-page report, there was bleeding from the woman’s private parts, with injury marks in other parts of the body. "There was bleeding from both her eyes and mouth, injuries over the face and nail. The victim was also bleeding from her private parts. She also has injuries in her belly, left leg… neck, in her right hand, ring finger and… lips," it said.

The victim's parents have lodged a complaint of rape and murder with Tala police station. Banerjee called the bereaved family and assured them of a fair probe, the family said.

Police said the accused, an outsider, had free access to the hospital. He was arrested after a torn bluetooth headphone cable was found in the seminar hall, which is on the fourth floor of the emergency department.

Junior doctors at various hospitals in West Bengal held protest sit-ins and took out processions on Saturday demanding exemplary punishment to those involved in the sexual assault and murder.

The junior doctors said that emergency services at these hospitals were operational.

The SFI and DYFI, which are CPI(M)'s students' and youth wings respectively, said they would hold road blockades across West Bengal on Saturday and Sunday to protest the murder. Activists of the two organisations also clashed with the police in front of R.G. Kar Hospital.

The deceased, a second-year student of the chest medicine department, was on duty on Thursday night.

With agency inputs