RG Kar rape-murder: CBI continues to quiz ex-principal
Kolkata (PTI): The CBI on Friday summoned former principal of RG Kar Medical College Sandip Ghosh for the 14th consecutive day for questioning in connection with its probe into the alleged rape and murder of a postgraduate trainee doctor in the early hours of August 9.
Ghosh, officials said, has already been quizzed by the agency for over 140 hours.
Besides the gruesome crime, Ghosh is also under the agency’s lens in the financial misconduct case at the hospital in which the sleuths have already registered an FIR against him and other entities.
Agency officials also searched and questioned the former principal at his residence last Sunday.
Ghosh was seen walking inside the CGO Complex in Salt Lake, which houses the agency’s eastern regional headquarters, at around 10.45 am.
On Thursday, multiple CBI teams visited the state-run RG Kar hospital as part of its ongoing investigations.
The first of the three teams from the agency's Nizam Palace office probing the alleged financial irregularities reached the hospital morgue to inquire about its infrastructure, protocols involved in preserving dead bodies and conducting post-mortems, a CBI official said.
The five-member team spoke to hospital doctors and staff, including the head of forensic department and current vice principal, Dr Saptarshi Chatterjee, for further clarifications on the issues.
The probes followed complaints by the hospital's former Deputy Superintendent Akhtar Ali of trafficking of unclaimed bodies, among other allegations of financial misconduct like corruption in disposal of bio-medical waste, nepotism in floating construction tenders and so on, during Ghosh's tenure as principal.
A second CBI team from Nizam Palace simultaneously searched the hospital store building where medical and purchase records are kept, the official said.
Another CBI team on Thursday went to the chest department housed at the third floor of the hospital's emergency building where the victim was on duty that fateful night, inspected the crime scene and spoke to nurses and other hospital staff, it was learnt.
So far, the probe has resulted in only one arrest, that of Kolkata Police civic volunteer Sanjoy Roy, who currently remains in judicial custody.
With 18 days having passed since the CBI took over investigation charges on a Calcutta High Court order, several unanswered questions about the ghastly crime – such as whether multiple people were involved, DNA test results of the fluid found in the victim’s genitals, forensic test reports of tissue samples found underneath the victim’s nails, whether responsibilities have been fixed on the alleged alteration of the crime scene – still continue to dominate the public domain.
Calcutta High Court transferred the twin probe - into the August 9 rape-murder of the medic and allegations of corruption during the tenure of Ghosh - on August 13 and August 23 respectively to CBI.
Ghosh has been questioned by the central agency at its CGO complex office since August 16.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
