Jail authorities suspended after Saradha scam accused Kunal Ghosh attempts suicide

Suspended Trinamool Congress MP and Saradha scam accused Kunal Ghosh on Friday allegedly tried to commit suicide by consuming sleeping pills in the Presidency Correctional Home where he has been lodged since his arrest last year.

Ghosh, who had threatened to end his life if the Central Bureau of Investigation failed to take action against those involved in the scam, has been admitted to a hospital.

West Bengal Correctional Home Services minister H A Safwi said Ghosh had claimed to have consumed sleeping pills and was admitted to state-run SSKMHospital, where doctors kept him under observation.

“The doctor was called and they found everything to be normal but still as a precautionary measure we did not take any chance and got him admitted to the SSKMHospital,” the minister said. SSKM Director Pradip Mitra said Ghosh is out of danger.

A top jail department official said as he had threatened to commit suicide an extra watch was kept on him for the past two days. “Before he went to sleep we searched him thoroughly. But no sedative or sleeping pill was found in his possession. But around 2.30 am, he started complaining of breathlessness and claimed he had taken sleeping pills. Jail doctors called on him, examined him thoroughly but did not find anything abnormal. Still we did not take any chance,” the official said.

Ghosh had threatened to commit suicide when he was produced before a city court on November 10 if CBI did not take “proper action” against those involved within three days.

“Investigation is being influenced. It is not acceptable that I will rot in jail while those involved will roam freely. I am giving three days’ time, if action is not taken I will commit suicide,” he had told Metropolitan Magistrate Arvind Mishra at Bankshall Court.

“I pray to you to pass an order that during these three days, none of my relatives or my lawyer be allowed to meet me or else I may get influenced and dissuaded,” Ghosh, who had during earlier court hearings accused some top TMC leader.

The special crime branch of CBI, which had arrested Ghosh on November 23 last year, has said it will write to the jail authorities asking where Ghosh was lodged and how he got access to medicines while in judicial custody.

It is a matter of “great concern” and “very difficult” to understand how Ghosh got access to medicines and subsequently allegedly tried to commit suicide after consuming medicines, CBI sources said.

“We will certainly write to the jail authorities to know how the medicines reached him and will also inform the court,” the sources said.

A former CEO of Saradha group firm Bengal Media Ltd and a journalist by profession, Ghosh was arrested by CBI for his alleged involvement in the Saradha ponzi  scam. 

He is lodged in jail along with Saradha chief Sudipta Sen and his associate Debjani Mukherjee and had been named in the preliminary charge sheet filed by CBI.

He had during earlier court hearings alleged that CBI had not acted on files of Bengal Media or against those he had named. He had also accused some top TMC leaders of having benefited from the scam. 

Jail authorities suspended

Following the incident, Superintendent of Presidency Correctional Home, jail doctor and on duty staff were on Friday suspended as the West Bengal government constituted a committee to probe the incident.

Making a statement to this effect in the state assembly, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said Home Secretary Basudeb Banerjee would head the committee which would probe the incident.

The superintendent, jail doctor and on duty staff would remain suspended pending completion of the inquiry, she said.

Banerjee said Ghosh’s condition is absolutely stable and he is being examined every hour by the doctors attending to him.

“At 2 am, he himself complained of uneasiness,” she said, adding, “Why should the doctor give him 15 sleeping pills? Two or three sleeping pills could have been given to him ... Perhaps he did not take as many pills as reported. Doctors also said it could not be that he has taken so many pills.”