Kolkata: An attempted cover-up, tampering with evidence, and the discovery of suspicious mobile numbers—these were among the reasons cited by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Tuesday as it sought further custody of Dr Sandip Ghosh and a senior police officer, arrested Saturday in connection with the rape and murder of a postgraduate doctor last month at Kolkata’s R.G. Kar Hospital.
The court went on to extend their custody by three more days, till 20 September.
Former R.G. Kar principal Ghosh and Abhijit Mondal, the officer in charge of Tala police station—under whose jurisdiction the hospital falls—were arrested for allegedly delaying the filing of an FIR and tampering with evidence. Ghosh was already in judicial custody for alleged financial irregularities.
The probe agency told a magistrates’ court Tuesday that Ghosh and Mondal were not cooperating with officers and had given evasive replies. An extension of custody was imperative, the CBI said, as the two “did not reveal the truth during their sustained custodial interrogation… conducted so far”.
The CBI said Ghosh and Mondal had made several calls to certain numbers on the day of the murder, and that multiple “suspected” mobile numbers had surfaced. “Details of each and every phone call exchanged by the two accused persons is [sic] required to be verified with the suspected calls to verify their version with a view to explore the possibility of criminal conspiracy hatched among main accused and co-accused persons, if any,” the CBI told the court in its remand copy, accessed by ThePrint.
The CBI also said it would need more time to examine digital video recorder footage and CCTV data of the Tala police station, which has jurisdiction over the hospital. It added that it needed to hold Ghosh and Mondal longer to confront them with the data.
“That further custodial interrogation based on CCTV footage of PS Tala and mobile data extracted from their phones and cross verification/confrontation with other relevant witnesses is required to unearth the conspiracy/nexus, if any and attempt to hush up the matter,” the CBI told the court.
In its four-page remand copy, the CBI also said both accused tried to “vitiate the evidence and vital data related to this case”. It alleged that the two had hurriedly cremated the doctor, though her family members had demanded a second autopsy.
The CBI also accused Ghosh of “willfully being absent from the scene of [the] crime” instead of closely monitoring proceedings, taking the necessary steps to preserve evidence and getting the FIR registered at the earliest.
In a previous sitting of the Supreme Court, which is hearing a suo motu case, the CBI had said there was a delay of 14 hours in filing the FIR.
In its remand copy Tuesday, the CBI said: “Dr Sandip Ghosh failed to ensure registration of proper FIR under appropriate sections of law. It is required to ascertain whether he acted in such a manner on the direction of any other person’s furtherance of any larger conspiracy and that the CBI has received further allegations against both the accused persons from the family members of the victim as well as from open sources which are required to be investigated in the interest of the case.”
The central agency also criticised the Kolkata police for allegedly seizing the clothes and belongings of Sanjoy Roy—the main accused in the rape and murder case—only two days after his arrest on 10 August.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)