India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will freshly investigate the rape and murder of a doctor — referred to by the pseudonym Abhaya — at the RG Kar Medical College Hospital in Kolkata. The agency has appointed three officers to the case, including a new investigating officer.
The earlier investigating officer, Seema Pahuja, has been removed and replaced by CBI officer Sandipani Garg, whose name the CBI sent to a Sealdah court on Thursday. Two more officials — CBI joint directors Anurag Kumar and Manish Upadhyay — have also been added to the new team, which will re-examine the case’s thousands of pages of records.
The victim’s lawyer told the Sealdah court that although the role of Nirmal Ghosh, a former Trinamool Congress legislator from Panihati, had repeatedly been flagged, the earlier investigating officer had not taken it up. The allegation has not been tested in court.
The victim’s mother, now a legislator for the BJP, welcomed the change, saying she would now get justice for her daughter’s rape and murder. She had earlier petitioned the court against Pahuja over what she called an improper investigation. In May, BJP parliamentarian and former judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay had demanded that Pahuja be treated as an accused for allegedly tampering with evidence.
On the night of August 9, 2024, the 31-year-old doctor was raped and murdered while on duty at the RG Kar hospital; her body was found the next day in a seminar hall. Doctors protested and demanded an autopsy, but the body was cremated on August 10 at Panihati; Nirmal Ghosh and others were later accused of involvement in the hurried cremation.
The killing triggered protests across West Bengal and India. Police arrested a hospital civic volunteer, Sanjay Roy, the day after the murder, and a Sealdah court sentenced him to life imprisonment on January 20 last year. The victim’s parents rejected the verdict. Her mother went on to contest and win the Panihati assembly seat for the BJP and pressed Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari for a fresh investigation.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report