Mamata: Political parties are trying to create unrest

Kolkata: The mutual accusations between the ruling Trinamool Congress party and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) have intensified after a gang of miscreants vandalised the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, where a trainee doctor was raped and murdered shortly before.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the BJP and the CPI(M) of orchestrating the vandalism at the hospital run by the West Bengal government. Her designated successor and general secretary of the ruling TMC, Abhishek Bandopadhyay, a member of the Lok Sabha, called up Calcutta Police Commissioner Vinit Goyal and demanded the arrest of all culprits responsible for the vandalism within 24 hours.

The BJP and the CPI(M), in turn, claimed that the ruling TMC itself had hired thugs to carry out the attacks with the aim of destroying the evidence related to the rape and murder of the junior doctor and intimidating the protesting medical workers.

While thousands of women across West Bengal took to the streets late Wednesday night and early hours of Thursday, staging the 'Reclaim the Night' protest to demand justice for the 31-year-old victim, a gang of nearly 40 goons stormed the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, pelted the policemen with stones, vandalised the makeshift podium of the protesting junior doctors, damaged a police vehicle, two autorickshaws and several two-wheelers. They also vandalised several departments of the hospital, including the emergency department.

The goons targeted the protesting doctors and assaulted many of them. They also destroyed CCTV cameras. However, Kolkata Police later claimed that the “crime scene of the rape and murder – the seminar room of the pulmonary department on the fourth floor of the hospital” – remained “intact” and was not “touched”.

Banerjee said she did not blame the students or doctors for their protests. Instead, she accused certain political parties of trying to create unrest.

CV Ananda Bose, the governor of West Bengal, visited the site later in the day. “I am with you,” he told the protesting junior doctors, who have continued their stop-work protest since August 9, when their colleague was found raped and murdered. The protest spread to other hospitals, paralysing healthcare across the state.

“The police are investigating the case. I have no complaints against students or agitating doctors. But there are certain political parties who are trying to create unrest. If you watch the video, you will see what happened,” the chief minister and the TMC chief told reporters outside the Raj Bhavan in Kolkata later in the day.

“Two floors of the hospital were destroyed, medicines looted and infrastructure and equipment severely damaged,” she said, adding that reconstruction would take a lot of time and money.

“Some outsiders who are political elements and want to create unrest in Bengal – the Left and the BJP – have jointly unleashed this (vandalism),” Banerjee said.

CPI(M) state secretary Mohammed Salim blamed the ruling TMC and the state government for the vandalism. Suvendu Adhikari, a BJP heavyweight and leader of the opposition in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, also accused the TMC of hiring goons to attack the protesting doctors and destroy evidence of the crime.

He wrote to the Union government demanding deployment of central security forces in and around the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. The BJP called for a two-hour blockade across the state on Friday.

The Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) also called for a 12-hour blockade across the state on the same day.

However, Banerjee said her government would not support a shutdown.

A volunteer – a contract employee of the Kolkata Police – was arrested for the rape and murder of the aspiring doctor, just a day after her body was found in the fourth-floor seminar room of the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

The Calcutta High Court has already handed over the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation.