One of the most brutal incidents ever reported in the country’s health sector was the brutal rape and subsequent murder of a 31-year-old doctor working at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata. The accused, Sanjoy Roy, was not a hospital worker but a civic volunteer worker for the Kolkata Police who got unfettered entry to the hospital campus.
Roy, a contractual police personnel earning about ₹ 12,000 a month, joined the Kolkata Police’s disaster management team in 2019. He then moved to the police welfare cell and subsequently transferred himself to the police outpost in the medical college, which enabled him to be attached to all departments.
Accusing Roy of being part of a racket, it was alleged that he used to demand money from the relatives of patients to get them admitted and get beds at the neighboring nursing homes. Technically, Roy was not a police officer, but he was using his influence to get a place to live at the police barracks and even paraded around in a simple T-shirt emblazoned with ‘KP’—short for Kolkata Police—on it, and so people actually thought Roy was a real police officer.
Reports have it that soon after the police began to quiz him, Roy confessed to the crime and displayed no trace of regret, saying, “Hang me if you want. ” His cell phone was chock-full of pornographic material; the thoughts of the man are so wicked.
Choosing the serial movement, the police received an important clue when CCTV cameras installed in the hospital’s territory showed Roy entering the emergency building at around 4 in the morning of the day of the tragedy. The doctor’s body was discovered in the same facility and the doctor’s dead body beside a Bluetooth headset; the detectives were able to identify that the gadget had been connected to Roy’s phone.
Roy’s efforts to destroy evidence that could lead to his identification as the culprit, for instance, washing his clothes to remove blood, were in vain as investigators recovered blood stains on his shoes. He has been detained in police custody since the time of his arrest and remanded till August 23.
The brutal attack on the doctor on duty, which led to her rape and kill, has made the medical college principal resign following students’ protests across the country. It has brought safety concerns for healthcare workers as anyone like Roy has been allowed full and uncontrolled access.
