Five months after the horrific rape and murder of a trainee doctor at the RG Kar Medical College Hospital, a Kolkata Sessions Court has found the accused, Sanjay Roy, a civic police volunteer, guilty. The sentence will be pronounced on Monday, January 20.
Sealdah Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Anirban Das relied on forensic evidence to reach a guilty verdict. During an earlier hearing, Sanjay Roy had claimed innocence and said he had been falsely implicated by the police.
Following the verdict, the woman’s father said that the DNA report showed the presence of more than one person. “We will feel some relief when the accused are punished. Until we get justice, we will keep knocking on the doors of the court and seek the support of the people of the country," he told ANI.
He also accused the CBI of not doing enough and said the family has written letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, who have not responded.
Massive protests erupted across the country in August 2024 after the 31-year-old doctor was found brutally assaulted and murdered on August 9. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that though she was against the practice of capital punishment, the accused would be “hanged if necessary.”
Sanjay Roy was arrested by the Kolkata police, whose custody was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) after doctors went on strike, raising concerns over the handling of the case by the medical college authorities and the Kolkata Police. Cases were registered against a police officer, Abhijit Mondal, who registered the case as an 'unnatural death' allegedly conniving with the former principal, Dr Sandip Ghosh. However, they were granted bail due to the CBI's failure to file the chargesheet on time, and only one accused remained. The chargesheet was later filed on October 7.
Kolkata Police, following an order from Calcutta High Court, handed the case over to the CBI. On August 14, the RG Kar hospital was vandalised by a 150-member mob and the emergency building where the victim was found dead was ransacked. The group also targeted the makeshift protest dais and at least eight police personnel were injured in stone-pelting. Thousands of people, mostly women, took to the streets of Kolkata with the Reclaim the Night protest beginning at 11:55 pm, minutes before Independence Day.
The Supreme Court on August 18 took suo motu cognisance of the case after two lawyers wrote a letter to the then Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud. “The nation looks to the judiciary as the ultimate guardian of justice, the last refuge for those whose cries have been silenced by brutality. The victim in this case, a young doctor whose life was dedicated to serving others, deserves nothing less than the full measure of justice that our legal system can provide. Her death must not be in vain; it must galvanise us to act, to ensure that no other woman suffers such a fate,” the letter read, according to The Economic Times.
According to the postmortem report, the involvement of several persons behind the rape and murder was unclear. The autopsy surgeon had also written “Nil” under the section titled “Fracture and Dislocation.” The woman’s mother told Newslaundry that she was not informed about the findings in the report. “I was told by some members of the hospital staff that my daughter’s bones were broken,” she added.
Ahead of the verdict, the family issued a statement and said that real justice would be achieved only when all the masterminds behind the crime were brought within the ambit of the investigation and punished. “If the dreams of our deceased daughter do not get justice, her lifelong achievements will become fruitless. We pray that no girl faces such pain as my daughter faced. All those who are responsible should not be spared at any cost. They should be punished so that no other daughter faces the same pain like ours,” the appeal from the woman’s mother read.