CBI raids premises of RG Kar ex-principal Sandip Ghosh, three others

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday conducted simultaneous raid and search operations at four places, including the residence of Dr Sandip Ghosh, the former principal of R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in connection with the financial irregularities.

Apart from Ghosh’s residence at Beliaghata in central Kolkata, the three other places where the CBI sleuths are conducting raid and search operations include the residences of R.G. Kar’s former medical superintendent and vice principal Sanjay Vashisth at Entally; the Demonstrator of the hospital’s forensic medicine department, Debasish Som Keshtopur in northern outskirts of Kolkata; and a medical equipment supplier Biplab Sinha in Howrah district.

The officials of the anti-corruption wing of the CBI, which is based out of Nizam Palace in central Kolkata, are investigating the financial irregularities in Kolkata. The sleuths of CBI’s special crime unit based out of the central government office (CGO) complex at Salt Lake are also conducting a parallel probe into the rape and murder of a junior woman doctor of the same hospital within the hospital premises earlier this month.

Both investigations are being conducted following the orders of the Calcutta High Court, and both are court-monitored.

The team of CBI sleuths, which reached Ghosh’s residence in the morning, had to wait for almost 90 minutes outside before ultimately the door was opened.

During the waiting period, one CBI official repeatedly tried to contact Ghosh over his mobile phone which remained unanswered. The CBI official also spoke to the police officers and staff posted outside Ghosh’s residence for security purposes.

Sources said that all four persons are under the radar of the CBI official since all of them were named in the petition on financial irregularities at R.G. Kar filed by the hospital’s former deputy superintendent Akhtar Ali. It was on Ali's report that the Calcutta High Court ordered the central agency probe.

Ghosh has already been questioned by the officials of CBI’s special crime unit for nine consecutive days since August 16 in connection with the rape and murder case. On average, he was questioned for 12 to 14 hours only daily.

The CBI officials, sources said, are now trying to track the links between the two cases, the first being that of rape & murder and the second being the financial irregularities.

The representatives of the protesting medical fraternity in West Bengal have already claimed that it needs to be probed whether the deceased junior doctor had to face such a ghastly end since she became aware of several secrets related to the functioning of RG Kar Medical College & Hospital.