The rape and murder of the doctor in Calcutta has shocked the country and sparked massive protests
Calcutta:
It was a normal morning in a middle-class household in north Calcutta. The daughter who had made her parents proud by becoming a doctor and continuing her studies was at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital for a long shift. The previous evening, she had called her mother at around 11.30 pm and talked to her as usual. Her mother did not call any longer. She would have done so if she had known that it would be her last conversation.
On the morning of August 9, three calls within half an hour shook their little world and made them fight for justice. NDTV has accessed the audio recordings of the calls to parents the morning after the 31-year-old doctor was raped and murdered in Kolkata hospital. Their voices capture the shock and confusion that two elderly parents experienced long before they reached the hospital and found their daughter’s battered body.
The first call
The rape and murder victim’s parents have told the court that the first call came in at 10:53 am. The caller was a woman who has since been identified as the hospital’s deputy superintendent. The Kolkata Police timeline submitted to the Supreme Court states that the officer called the parents at that time and “informed” them, but the conversation was not elaborated. The cops’ timeline mentions only one call. However, the three audio files show that three calls were made and it was only in the last call that the victim’s parents were informed that she had died.
READ: Kolkata cops’ timeline for doctor’s rape-murder and what doesn’t add up
Victim’s father: What happened, please tell me
Caller: Your condition is very bad, please come as soon as possible
Victim’s father: Please tell us what happened
Caller: The doctor will say that. Come quickly.
Father of the victim: Who are you?
Caller: I am the deputy director, not the doctor
Victim’s father: There are no doctors there?
Caller: I’m the assistant supervisor. We brought your daughter to the emergency room. Come by and contact us.
Mother of the victim: What happened to her, she was on duty
Caller: Come quickly, as soon as possible.
The second call
The second call is from a male voice. At this point, the parents are already on their way to the hospital.
Caller: I am speaking from RG Kar (Hospital)
Mother of the victim: Yes, please say
Caller: You’re coming, right?
Victim’s mother: Yes, we’re coming. How is she now?
Caller: Come, we will talk, come to the Thoracic Department of RG Kar Hospital HOD
Victim’s mother: Okay
The third call
In the third call, the victim’s parents were told that she had committed suicide. This was raised repeatedly in court and the judges asked why the parents had been misled. This call came from the deputy superintendent who had made the first call.
Victim’s father: Hello
Caller: This is Assistant Super.
Father of the victim: Yes
Caller: The message is that your daughter probably committed suicide. She’s dead, the police are here, we’re all here, please come as soon as possible.
Father of the victim: We are coming immediately
Victim’s mother (screaming in the background): My daughter is no longer alive.
The communication of the hospital administration with the victim’s parents is one aspect of this horrific incident that has been repeatedly scrutinized in both the Calcutta High Court and the Supreme Court. In their petition before the Supreme Court, the parents alleged that they were made to wait for three hours. They suspect that this delay was deliberate.
However, the Kolkata Police have denied this. Their timeline states that the parents arrived at the hospital at 1 pm and 10 minutes later they were taken to the seminar hall where the body was found. The courts have also questioned why the hospital administration, headed by the then director Dr Sandip Ghosh, did not file a formal complaint with the police and the police had to register a case of unnatural death. An FIR was filed only late in the night after the victim’s father filed a formal complaint.
Speaking to NDTV, the victim’s father described the devastating moment when they saw their daughter’s body. “Only I know what I went through when I saw her. She was not wearing any clothes. She was only wrapped in a bedsheet. Her legs were spread, one hand was on her head,” he said.
