JOIN USSuspended Trinamool Congress MP Kunal Ghosh, who was arrested last year for his role in the Saradha chit-fund scam, tried to commit suicide on Friday. He was taken to a state-run hospital. His condition was said to be stable.
Following the incident, the state home department has suspended the jail’s superintendent and the attending doctor.
State government sources said Ghosh, CEO of the Saradha Group’s media ventures, consumed around 15 sleeping pills. Doctors had to wash his stomach to clean out the sedatives.
Ghosh, however, claimed in a suicide note that he consumed 58 pills. He used to consume the pills regularly as he claimed to have sleep disorder. Without naming Ghosh, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee told the Assembly that “the person” had consumed sleeping pills in a bid to commit suicide, but was unsuccessful due to timely medical intervention.
“We have suspended the superintendent of the Presidency correctional home, the doctor who was attending to him and an officer on duty. We are setting up a probe committee to look into the matter,” she said.
Incidentally, during his last appearance at a city court in the ongoing trial for the scam, Ghosh had threatened to commit suicide if court did not take into account his version on the people behind the scam.
He had claimed that while he was in jail, the “real culprits” are roaming free. Ghosh has been claiming for months that Chief Minster Mamata Banerjee and senior Trinamool leader Mukul Roy should be interrogated for their role in the scam.
Ghosh being the only leading politician arrested in the case, his suicide attempt led to an uproar in political circle.
While Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi saw a political motive behind it, the BJP’s Siddharth Nath Singh said in a statement: “Many had suspected a political motive behind Ghosh’s arrest because he had started to expose the senior Trinamool leadership’s involvement in the scam.” Demanding a CBI probe into the suicide attempt, Singh raised questions about how the pills made their way to his cell.