Kolkata horror: Contradicting bribe claim by victims parents

Kolkata: Amid continuing outrage over the rape and murder of a young doctor at a hospital in Kolkata, two contradictory statements by the parents of the victim about an offer of hush money allegedly made by a senior officer of the city police triggered a new row.

The parents of the doctor, who was found raped and murdered at the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata on August 9, however, said on Thursday that they had indeed been offered hush money but had withdrawn the allegation earlier as the city cops had been investigating the case then.

As the widespread protest over the rape and murder of the 31-year-old postgraduate trainee doctor at a hospital run by the government of West Bengal put the Trinamool Congress in a tight spot, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee party on Thursday questioned the silence of the Central Bureau of Investigation on the progress in the past 23 days since it took over the probe into the heinous crime.

“The police, from the very beginning, tried to hush up the case. We were not allowed to see the body and had to wait at the police station while the body was taken for post-mortem examination. Later, when the body was handed over to us, a senior police official offered us money, which we immediately declined,” the father of the victim told journalists on Wednesday when he and his wife went to the RGKMCH to join the junior doctors protesting over the rape and murder of their colleague.

The ruling TMC, however, on Thursday released an old video, with the parents denying making any such allegation.

During a press conference on Thursday, Bratya Basu and Shashi Panja, two ministers of the government of West Bengal, wondered if the parents had told the CBI officials probing the case that they had been offered the hush money and, if they had done so, why the CBI had not questioned the police officer who had allegedly offer them money.

The father of the victim on Thursday said that he had denied receiving the hush money offer as the Kolkata Police had been probing the rape and murder of their daughter then.

The Kolkata Police arrested a civic volunteer, a contractual member of its support staff, for raping and murdering the doctor a day after her body was found. The Central Bureau of Investigation took over the probe into rape and murder on August 14. With the incident bringing to the fore allegations of rampant corruption and irregularities at the RGKMCH, the Calcutta High Court on August 23 also ordered the CBI to take over the probe into it. The central agency arrested Dr Sandip Ghosh, who was the principal of the RGKMCH when the young doctor was raped and murdered, on September 2 for financial misconduct.