Sandip Ghosh, the former Principal of Kolkata’s RG Kar MEdical College, where a young doctor was raped and murdered last month, has been suspended by the health minister of West Bengal. The suspension comes on the heels of his arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI yesterday in connection with alleged irregularities at the hospital during his tenure.
He has been has been placed in police custody for eight days. The CBI had sought his custody for 10 days.
Three others were arrested along with Sandip Ghosh. Sources said they are vendors Biplav Singha and Suman Hazara, who supplied medicine to the hospital and Afsar Ali, a security guard.
The financial irregularities case against him was triggered by a petition by former Deputy Superintendent of RG Kar Hospital Akhtar Ali.
He had accused Sandip Ghosh of illegal sale of unclaimed corpses, trafficking of biomedical waste and passing tenders against the commission paid by medicine and medical equipment suppliers.
He also alleged that students were pressured to pay anything between Rs5 and 8 lakh to pass exams.
Sandip Ghosh has already been suspended by the Indian Medical Association. His appointment to premier Calcutta National Medical College also backfired, with the students locking him out of the Principal’s office long before the Supreme Court order.
The financial irregularities case was handed to the CBI by the Calcutta High Court as a parallel investigation. The agency is primarily in Kolkata to probe the rape-murder case on the instructins of the HIgh Court.
On August 25, the CBI had conducted a search at the home of Sandip Ghosh. Late in the evening, asked if they have gathered any evidence, an official had said, “lots”.
The former Principal has undergone two rounds of polygraph tests in connection with the rape-murder case.
