Kolkata Horror: 'Happy Birthday', Mamata's Old Letter to Sandip Ghosh Surfaces Amid Abhaya Probe

New Delhi/Kolkata: As Dr Sandip Ghosh, the former principal of RG Kar Hospital, faces increasing scrutiny in the wake of the rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor on August 9, an old letter from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to Ghosh has resurfaced and gone viral. The letter, sent from the Chief Minister’s office in 2022, was a birthday greeting to the former principal of RG Kar Hospital.

Its resurfacing has become an embarrassment for the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), as it highlights the close rapport between Ghosh and the party. If reports are to be believed, Dr. Sandip Ghosh was among a select group of individuals who received personalised birthday letters from the Chief Minister as a goodwill gesture.

Reacting to the letter, BJP leader and spokesperson Priyanka Tibrewal said that it was well-known that Dr. Sandip Ghosh, who has been subject to extensive questioning by the CBI in the case, was in the good graces of Mamata Banerjee.

Tibrewal stated, "This is the reason that when a special committee was formed to investigate irregularities at RG Kar Hospital following a vigilance report, Dr. Sandip Ghosh was not removed. He was still intact in the college."

Meanwhile, the CBI sought a polygraph test on former RG Kar Medical College principal Sandip Ghosh and four other doctors in connection with the alleged rape and murder of a postgraduate trainee at the hospital.  

The CBI took Ghosh and four other doctors, who were on duty on the date of the incident, to a special court to seek its permission to conduct the lie detection test on them. The lie detection test can only be done after permission from the court and the consent of the suspect, officials said.

The CBI had also alleged in the Supreme Court that there was an attempt by the local police to cover up the rape and killing of the post-graduate medic as the crime scene was altered by the time the federal agency took over the probe.

The rape and killing of the junior doctor in a seminar hall of the hospital has sparked widespread protests.

The medic’s body with severe injury marks was found inside the seminar hall of the hospital’s chest department in the morning of August 9. A civic volunteer of the Kolkata Police was arrested the following day.

On August 13, the Calcutta High Court ordered the transfer of the probe from the Kolkata Police to the CBI, which started its investigation on August 14.