CBI grills TMC MLA Atin Ghosh over RG Kar hospital graft case

KOlkata, CBI officers on fri landed up at the compass north calcutta abode of TMC MLA Atin Ghosh on fri to question him about alleged financial irregularities at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital that the agency is probing alongside the rape and murder of a postgraduate intern within the institution premises last year, officials said. A team of three CBI officers, accompanied by a contingent of armed central paramilitary troops, reached Ghosh’s Shyambazar residence, C Abasan, an apartment building on C Road, at around 2.15 pm. Till reports were last received, the examination session was still on. The officers were seen carrying document files related to the case when they walked inside the house of Ghosh who is also the deputy mayor of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. The CBI has previously arrested five accused, including the college’s former principal Sandip Ghosh, in connection with the case, all of whom are currently in jail. The arrests were made following the gruesome rape and murder of the junior doctor on August 9 last year and a subsequent complaint of multi-crore corruption and a ‘syndicate raj’ prevalent at the institution, allegedly at the behest of the hospital’s Patient Welfare Board. The complainant, Akhtar Ali, a former deputy superintendent of the medical college, alleged trafficking of bodies and biomedical waste from the hospital by its authorities, besides bribery and large scale financial irregularities involving nepotism by means of fraudulent work orders and bypassing of tenders. On August 29, last year, the CBI submitted its preliminary chargesheet in the financial corruption case at RG Kar hospital in Alipore Court, naming five people, including Ghosh. Charges against all five were framed in court in July this year under multiple sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Sources confirmed that the Trinamool leader was being questioned after his name cropped up during the course of the investigation. “Atin Ghosh was an ex-officio member of the RG Kar Patient Welfare Board on account of his being the MLA of the local Kashipur-Belgachhia constituency. We are examining him as part of this ongoing investigation,” an official said. A week ago, the CBI conducted search operations at the north Kolkata residence of another TMC MLA and doctor Sudipto Roy in Sinthi for his alleged involvement in the financial irregularities case. Roy, a legislator from Sreerampur, was the chairperson of the Patient Welfare Board at RG Kar hospital at the time of the crime and is also the president of the West Bengal Medical Council. The CBI, as well as the ED, has conducted multiple raids at Roy’s house in the past for his alleged involvement in the case. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.