CBI asks Bengal court to order narco analysis on ex-principal Sandip Ghosh

KOLKATA: A Kolkata court on Friday extended the CBI remand of Sandip Ghosh, the former principal of Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, and Abhijit Mondal, former officer-in-charge of the city’s Tala police station, till September 25 when they were produced for hearing on the August 9 rape and murder of a post-graduate trainee doctor inside the hospital.

Lawyers who attended the hearing said the Sealdah additional chief judicial magistrate’s court asked the CBI if it has found evidence of a link between the two since they were arrested on September 14 on suspicion of tampering evidence.

“In response, CBI’s lawyers said they have so far found electronic evidence of multiple phone calls between the two after the crime had taken place. They said Ghosh and Mondal need to be interrogated further,” a lawyer said on condition of anonymity.

CBI officers had cited the phone calls between the two when they last sought an extension of their remand on September 17.

Sandip Ghosh and Abhijit Mondal were arrested by CBI on charges of tampering evidence and delay in registering FIR in connection with the rape and murder of a second-year postgraduate student inside a seminar hall of the hospital on August 9.

On Friday, CBI also sought permission from the Sealdah court to make Sandip Ghosh face a narco-analysis test.

A narco-analysis test - the findings of which are not admissible as evidence in an Indian court - cannot be conducted if the subject refuses.

To be sure, Sanjoy Roy, the 31-year-old civic volunteer who was arrested for the doctor’s rape and murder, had earlier refused to take the test.

CBI took over the case on August 13 on the orders of the Calcutta high court . He was remanded in judicial custody after interrogation and a polygraph test. On Friday, Roy’s judicial custody was also extended by 14 days.