West Bengal CM Suvendu Adhikari orders fresh probe into RG Kar rape-murder

Meanwhile, a two-minute silence was observed on Sunday at all government hospitals across West Bengal to mark the incident. The West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front, which led extensive protests in 2024, held a clinic for underprivileged people at Chitpur in north Kolkata.

“We are holding the clinic seeking justice for the on-duty doctor who was raped and murdered,” said one participating doctor.

The Junior Doctors’ Front later held a memorial march from College Street to Esplanade for the victim, demanding that proper justice be served by way of arrest and trial of other people who may have been involved in the crime directly or indirectly. A day earlier, State Health Minister Sharadwat Mukhopadhyay had announced that his department will initiate a separate investigation into the rape and murder case.

Mukhopadhyay said the health department will summon everyone present at the hospital on the night of the incident. In addition, the investigating officers will also speak with the victim’s teachers and professors. He said, “If, in the course of investigation, the department thinks former health minister (Mamata Banerjee) should be summoned, that decision also will be implemented.”

The health minister stated the inquiry will also comprehensively examine what specific shortcomings or loopholes existed at the time in the hospital’s internal security and administrative framework, and how those deficiencies were subsequently rectified.

Meanwhile, Asfaqullah Naiya, a member of the Abhaya Mancha that spearheaded the protests in the wake of the incident, said, “The state government is observing silence; we are welcoming that. But if the investigation of the RG Kar rape and murder case is also silenced, then it will not be accepted. Till date, we don’t know exactly what happened on that night. We want proper justice.”

(With PTI inputs)