RG Kar horror: Delay in informing police, language in FIR under CBI lens

Kolkata, Aug 31 (IANS) The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probing the ghastly rape and murder of a junior doctor at the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata is trying to join some missing dots in the case, especially the time gap in informing the police and the language used in the initial FIR registered by the cops.

Sources said that as per the information gathered by the probe agency, the body of the victim was detected in the seminar hall of the hospital building at 9.45 a.m. on August 9 by an associate professor attached to the chest medicine department, who immediately alerted the erstwhile Medical Superintendent and Vice Principal of the hospital.

As per records, the local Tala police station was informed about the recovery of the body at 10.10 a.m. The CBI officers, the sources said, are now trying to find out what took the hospital authorities 25 minutes to inform the police about such a serious matter.

Secondly, the language used in the initial FIR registered in the case has also baffled the investigating officers. In the FIR, the sources said, the phrase ‘willful rape with murder’ by unknown miscreants was used.

Sources said that in legal terminology, there is nothing called ‘willful’ rape.

Senior counsel in the Calcutta High Court, Kaushik Gupta, also feels that the use of the term ‘willful rape’ was highly unusual in an FIR lodged in a case of rape and murder.

“A rape or a rape and murder cannot be unwilling. Secondly, as a legal practitioner, I too find the delay on the part of the hospital authorities in informing the police about the recovery of the body highly suspicious. Any time lapse in informing the police in such matters delays the process of filing the FIR, which can adversely impact the prosecution,” Gupta told IANS.

–IANS

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