No guarantee CBI has not been sold out: RG Kar victim's parents

Kolkata: "There is no guarantee that the Central Bureau of Investigation has not been sold out," parents of the young doctor, who had been raped and murdered in Kolkata on August 9, 2024, said on Saturday, before being injured in a clash with police during a protest on the first anniversary of the crime.

Suvendu Adkhikari, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s heavyweight and Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly, and a few other party leaders joined the parents of the victim during the protest, albeit without the saffron party’s flag.

Though the parents of the victim had called upon other opposition parties to join the protest, they stayed away, citing the participation of Adhikari and other BJP leaders. The leftists and other civil society organisations, as well as the victim’s friends and other junior doctors, however, held separate protest demonstrations, including one near the residence of Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister and the ruling Trinamool Congress supremo.

Hours before the cops stopped them and other protesters from marching to ‘Nabanna’, the seat of the government of West Bengal, the parents of the victim not only hit out at the CBI but also targeted the Kolkata Police, which had probed the case for a few days till the High Court had ordered the central agency to take over the case.

The mother of the victim suffered injuries on her forehead, hands and back when some police personnel allegedly roughed her up while stopping her, her husband and other protesters at the Park Street from marching towards the Vidyasagar Setu to reach ‘Nabanna’, the state secretariat.

The father of the victim also suffered minor injuries. “Four or five police personnel pinned me to the ground,” alleged the mother of the victim. She and her husband had called for the march to the state secretariat, demanding that all the culprits responsible for the rape and murder of the young postgraduate doctor be brought to justice.

The police baton charged when the protesters tried to break the barricades to march towards the state secretariat.

“We have no information about the victim's parents getting beaten up by police at Park Street crossing. Police did not do anything to the parents. But their allegations will be duly investigated,” Harikrishna Pai, DC (Port), told journalists.

The CBI investigation could not find any other accused other than Sanjay Roy, whom the Kolkata Police had arrested a day after the body of the doctor had been found.

He had been sentenced to life imprisonment. “The CBI has been trying to convince us that no one else but Sanjay Roy alone was the culprit. But we are not ready to accept this. One person alone can't commit such a crime,” the father of the deceased doctor reiterated while participating in a protest demonstration organised by the civil society organisations early on Saturday.

He expressed disappointment over the recent meeting he and his wife had with the CBI chief, Praveen Sood, in New Delhi. “Let’s not talk about the Kolkata Police, which has completely turned servile to the ruling party.”