TMC MP Jawhar Sircar says he’ll resign over RG Kar horror, corruption
KOLKATA, Sep 8 : The CBI officials investigating the rape and murder of the woman doctor of R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital here, are now focusing on what prompted severe lapses in carrying out the initial probe before it took over the case on the Calcutta High Court’s order.
Sources said that the central agency officials believe that their probe process could have been much smoother had these lapses been avoided during the initial investigation before the CBI took charge.
The first lapse, according to sources, was the lackadaisical videography of the process of post-mortem of the victim’s body and the mentioning of the wounds on the body in the report.
The forensic experts helping the CBI team in the investigation had pointed out that the language used in the post-mortem report had been quite amateurish which “conceals” more rather than revealing the relevant details, sources added.
The second aspect, sources added, is that the CBI officials feel that a second post-mortem of the body of the victim could have been extremely handy in the investigation process since more details could have surfaced from that.
On this aspect, the investigating officials are trying to figure out from the victim’s family members and her close associates the circumstances under which the body was cremated in haste.
Sources said that this aspect of investigation has become extremely crucial in the backdrop of the claims by the victim’s parents that their plea for the preservation of their daughter’s body was totally ignored by the administrative officials.
The CBI officials, by questioning the victim’s family members and close associates, are trying to get details of those administrative and political persons who assembled at their residence before the cremation and at the crematorium.
SC to hear RG Kar case today
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Monday the case related to the murder and alleged rape of a junior doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata.
According to the cause list uploaded on the apex court’s website, a bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra is slated to hear on September 9 the case, which was initiated by the top court on its own.
The Centre has recently filed an application in the apex court alleging “unpardonable” non-cooperation by the West Bengal government in extending logistical support to the CISF, tasked with providing security at the hospital.
In its application, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs has termed the alleged non-cooperation of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government as an example “symptomatic of a systemic malaise” and sought a direction to the state authorities to extend full cooperation to the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).
In case of their failure to do so, the Centre has urged the apex court to initiate contempt proceedings against the state government officials concerned for “wilful non-compliance” of the court orders.
While hearing the matter on August 22, the top court tore into the Kolkata Police over the delay in registering the unnatural death of the doctor.
Making an impassioned appeal to the protesting doctors across the country, the apex court had also asked them to get back to work, saying “justice and medicine” cannot be stopped. Moreover, it said it was issuing all necessary directions to ensure their safety.
TMC MP to quit
TMC MP Jawhar Sircar on Sunday wrote to West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, the chief of his party, and said he has decided to quit Rajya Sabha and leave politics altogether, describing the steps taken by the state government in handling the rape and murder of the doctor at RG Kar hospital “too little and quite late”.
In the letter, Sircar said he became increasingly “disillusioned” with the state government as it seemed “quite unconcerned” about corruption and “strong-arm tactics” of a section of leaders.
Terming the protests over the doctor’s death spontaneous, the retired IAS officer said he had not seen “such angst and total no-confidence” against a government, even when it was saying things that were correct or factual.
Sircar said that in 2022, a year after he joined the TMC, he was “quite shocked” to see the “open evidence of corruption” that former education minister Partha Chatterjee had indulged in.
The former bureaucrat said that he was persuaded by well-wishers to remain an MP to “carry on the battle” against “a regime that is the greatest ever threat to Indian democracy and civil liberties”.
Noting his middle-class way of living, Sircar said he was amazed to see that several elected panchayat and municipal representatives of the TMC acquired big properties and moved around in expensive vehicles.
Referring to the protests over the rape and murder of the doctor, he said the “spontaneous outpouring of public anger” is against this unchecked overbearing attitude of the “favoured few and the corrupt”.
Sircar said he had “suffered patiently” for a month since the incident at RG Kar hospital, hoping for direct intervention with the agitating junior doctors, “in the old style of Mamata Banerjee”.
Sircar said the agitation was non-political and spontaneous and it was not correct to take a “confrontational stand, by labelling it political”.
Sircar claimed he wrote the letter as he did not get the opportunity to speak privately with Banerjee for months.
He said he would soon visit Delhi, and offer his resignation to the Rajya Sabha chairperson, disassociating himself from politics. (Agencies)
