Sucharita Sarkar, the hospital’s non-medical assistant superintendent, made the first call at 10:53 a.m., more than an hour after Sumit Roy Tadar, an assistant professor of respiratory medicine, alerted police about a 31-year-old intern found dead on campus.
Based on the call, the victim’s parents have claimed a cover-up.
Call to parents after Kolkata hospital informs police about death
Every time a woman gives conflicting information about my son’s condition,” said the doctor’s father. “It was only on the third call that the caller identified himself as the assistant superintendent of the hospital.”
The fact that the call was made long after the hospital notified the police of the death added to the family’s grief. The police team was at RG Kar hospital at 10.10am. The body of the junior doctor was found around 09:30.
“Can you come right away?” Sarkar’s voice was heard by the victim’s father in the first of three audio clip online circulation. He told me that his daughter was sick but did not elaborate. When the father sought information about the illness, the caller replied, “The doctor will tell you when you come. We got your number and will call you.” The conversation lasted 32 seconds.
The second call, 18 seconds long, was apparently made by the junior doctor’s father to Sarkar within the first five minutes. “We have taken your daughter to the emergency room. She is critical. Come quickly,” Sarkar said in the clip.
A voice said to be the victim’s mother was heard saying in the background that her daughter was supposed to be “on duty” before the call was disconnected.
The third call, made by Sarkar to the family within three minutes of the second, broke the news of the junior doctor’s death. “He has died by suicide, maybe … We are in front of the hospital with everyone. Let’s hurry,” said the caller during a conversation that lasted 56 seconds.
Sarkar did not respond to calls and texts from TOI.
The victim’s father said Thursday that he recorded each of the three calls but did not know how they became public. The footage was part of the police docket handed over to the CBI when the central agency took up the probe on the orders of the Calcutta HC.
In his statement to the CBI and the police, Sarkar said that the head of respiratory medicine at RG Kar hospital, Arunabha Dutta Chowdhury, instructed him to call the family but did not reveal the truth, fearing “they will not go into shock”. CBI sources quoted Sarkar as saying that he grew more “nervous” with each call and uttered the word “suicide” during the third conversation.
“The audio clip supports our version,” said Kolkata Police DCP Indira Mukherjee. “The police never called the family to tell them that the victim died by suicide. The audio clip confirms that.
The victim’s mother pointed to “inconsistencies” in the details of how her daughter’s body was found. “According to my daughter’s friend, around 3am, she was found sleeping in the seminar room, wearing a red scarf. However, a video clip later aired on a news channel showed the body wrapped in a blue scarf. When we were allowed to enter the seminar room to identify the body around 3:30 p.m., we found a green scarf covering him,” he said.
DCP Mukherjee said “no green scarf was seen or mentioned anywhere”. “All the case documents with the CBI, one can also cross-check with them…There are court records, seizure memos, everything that mentions the blue scarf. Everything has been divided.”
Police said the red scarf may have been worn by the victim while she slept, but the attacker threw it away and replaced it with a blue scarf as part of an attempt to destroy evidence.
