We are not shielding anyone: Kolkata CP on doctor's murder probe

Kolkata police commissioner Vineet Goel on Friday asserted that the force was not trying to shield anyone and it tried to be as transparent as possible in the probe into the alleged rape and murder of a doctor at a state-run hospital in Kolkata.

Addressing a press conference, Goel also admitted that despite 'sufficient security presence,' the police did not expect the protesting crowd to turn violent outside RG Kar Hospital premises in the early hours of August 15, and were initially caught off-guard when a deputy commissioner-ranked officer got injured.

The CP said that the Kolkata police handed over all evidence, including videographed post-mortem to the Central Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the case upon orders of the Calcutta high court.

"We are not shielding anyone, and police tried to be as transparent as possible in our probe. We have handed over all evidence related to the case to the CBI. Have faith in the central probe agency," he said.

Goel also said initially registering an unnatural death case did not mean police wanted to 'label the crime as suicide.'

"That's a standard practice followed by all investigation agencies in the country. We went by the book. There was no attempt to call the crime a 'suicide' as being erroneously reported from certain quarters. The police never called it a 'suicide', he said.

On the vandalism at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on Thursday, Goel said it is difficult to control leaderless and spontaneous protests.

"We didn't expect the crowd before RG Kar hospital to turn violent," the top police officer said.

Goel stated that 25 people have been arrested so far in connection with the ransacking of the hospital, some of whom were picked up based on feedback from netizens, who responded with information on the basis of social media appeals of the Kolkata police.

He asserted that the vandals couldn't reach the scene of crime, the seminar hall on the fourth floor of the building that housed the emergency department, where the body of the murdered medic was found.

The emergency ward, nursing station, medicine store and parts of the outpatient department of the hospital were vandalised by miscreants on Thursday amid midnight protests by women across West Bengal, condemning the alleged rape and murder of the postgraduate trainee in the hospital's seminar hall on August 9.