West Bengal on Tuesday replaced Kolkata’s police commissioner and transferred three senior police and health department officials, in line with the assurances given by chief minister Mamata Banerjee a day ago to protesters who have struck work for over a month over the brutal rape and murder of a young doctor.
The junior doctors were holding meetings to take a decision on resuming work at the time of going to print. Their protest touched 39 days on Tuesday.
“All those who are involved in the murder of my daughter, tampering evidence and shielding the guilty should be brought under the purview of the investigation. My daughter will get justice when all these people are punished,” the victim’s mother said.
The state government appointed Manoj Kumar Verma, a 1998 batch Indian Police Service officer as the new commissioner of Kolkata Police. Verma was holding the post of additional director general (ADG) of police (law and order). He replaced Vineet Kumar Goyal, who was transferred to the state police’s special task force as its ADG. Goyal had faced the ire of protesters over alleged laxity in the initial investigation into the rape and murder of the 31-year-old doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9.
Abhishek Gupta, who was the deputy commissioner (north division) of Kolkata Police, was transferred to Eastern Frontier Rifles. He was replaced by Dipak Sarkar.
Three more IPS officers were also shuffled. Gyanwant Singh, who was posted as the director at the Directorate of Economic Offences was transferred to Intelligence Branch of state police as the ADG. He replaced Jawed Shamim who was given the post of ADG law and order. Tripurari Atharv, who was posted as ADG of STF was sent to Directorate of Economic Offences as its director.
In health department, Suparna Dutta was appointed as OSD of medical education, and Swapan Soren was appointed in-charge of director of health services.
The developments came a day after Banerjee assured protesters Goyal, Gupta, director of medical education Kaustav Nayek and director of health services Debasish Haldar would be removed after 4pm on Tuesday. The announcement had come after a marathon five-hour meeting between Banerjee and the protesters, who had a five-point charter of demands. This included justice for the doctor; action against all officials responsible for alleged tampering of the evidence; action against former RG Kar hospital principal Sandip Ghosh; the resignation of Goyal; and the creation of a safe environment for doctors in medical colleges and hospitals in West Bengal.
While the victim’s family alleged that Gupta offered them money, state health secretary, DHS and DME were accused of allowing the renovation of the doctor’s room adjacent to the seminar hall, from where the victim’s body was recovered. This fuelled allegations that evidence was tampered. As the Kolkata Police was accused of mishandling the investigation, tampering evidence and failed to prevent the rampage in the hospital on August 15, the agitators wanted the police commissioner to take moral responsibility of the failure and step down.
Doctors across the state have been on strike since August 9 demanding justice for the junior doctor who was raped and murdered in RG Kar Hospital last month. The incident triggered a nationwide uproar.
Last week, the Supreme Court had asked the doctors to return to work by 5pm on August 10. But the agitators defied the deadline, saying their demands hadn’t been met and started a sit-in outside Swasthya Bhavan with their five demands. The sit-in was still continuing along with the cease work.
The body of the second-year postgraduate student, who was allegedly raped and murdered inside a seminar hall of the hospital, was found on August 9. The crime took place at the third-floor seminar hall of the chest department early in the morning and police later said that multiple abrasions and wounds were found on her body. A 31-year-old civic volunteer, Sanjay Roy, was arrested the next day and was sent to 14-day police custody. He is now in judicial custody. The investigation was later handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which arrested Ghosh and Abhijit Mondal, officer in charge of Tala police station on charges of tampering evidence, delay in registering FIR and misleading the investigation.
Since the gruesome crime, protests have swept Kolkata as agitators have alleged a string of missteps by the state administration and actions by Ghosh and the city police to tamper with evidence. The government has denied all allegations.
Talks between the state government and the striking medics failed to take off at least twice last week. On Saturday, the chief minister went to the protest site to meet the doctors, saying that it was her last attempt to end the deadlock. Talks were finally held on Monday evening at Banerjee’s house in Kalighat.
“They demanded the removal of the state health secretary, director of health services (DHS) and director of medical education (DME). How will the administration run if all three are removed in one go? We have decided to remove the DHS and DME, as the junior doctors said they don’t have faith in them. We can’t disrespect the DHS and DME though,” Banerjee had told the media late on Monday. “We took a decision to remove the Kolkata Police commissioner after the Supreme Court’s hearing on Tuesday….”
The doctors, however, refused to withdraw the strike immediately based on verbal assurances of the chief minister. “We have received verbal assurances. We will not take any decision on the strike or the sit-in outside Swasthya Bhavan, till those are implemented. We will take a decision on Tuesday after the SC hearing,” Debaish Halder, a protester