Former Trinamool MLA Nirmal Ghosh arrested for ‘hurried’ cremation of RG Kar victim :::: CJI Chandrachud during a hearing wondered how the post-mortem could be conducted even before the FIR was filed !!

Former Trinamool MLA Nirmal Ghosh arrested for  ‘hurried’ cremation of RG Kar victim  

The then Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud during a hearing in the apex court had wondered how the post-mortem could be conducted even before the FIR was filed.

The arrest came within a week after West Bengal chief minister Suvenu Adhikari ordered a fresh probe into the hurried cremation of the slain doctor on the night of August 9, 2024.   

Nirmal Ghosh, the former MLA of the Trinamool from Panihati, was arrested on Thursday from Odisha’s Puri in connection with the alleged hurried cremation of the post-graduate trainee doctor raped and murdered at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital two years ago.  

The victim’s father had on Monday lodged an FIR naming Ghosh and two others.

Ghosh had allegedly fled to Odisha after the chief minister instructed the Barrackpore police commissionerate to start a probe.  

The slain doctor lived with her parents in Panihati, a seat that Ghosh represented five times in the state Assembly. The current MLA is the victim’s mother who is with the ruling BJP.  

Ghosh had changed his mobile SIM but stayed in contact with some of his close associates, according to police sources. Tracking the calls, the former MLA was traced to a hotel in Puri and arrested. 

“At the cremation ground, the serial number [of the doctor’s body in the cremation queue] was three; however, the body was cremated at serial number one,” chief minister Adhikari had said at an event on the second anniversary of the crime that shook Kolkata and Bengal.

“The cremation documents, which should have carried the signatures of the family or nearest relatives, did not have any signatures. 

All this was done by Nirmal Ghosh, Somnath Das and Sanjib Mukherjee,” the CM had said. 

 Soon after the doctor’s body was found at the seminar hall on the third floor of the hospital’s emergency department, Ghosh, who was the then government chief whip in the Bengal Assembly and an influential politician in the then ruling Trinamool, had rushed to the hospital.

The cremation was held at Natagarh, Kadamtala crematorium in North 24-Parganas Ghola and the family was told not to worry about the expenses.

“The chief minister himself has named them. The cremation was conducted in a hurry by Nirmal Ghosh, Somnath Dey [the local councilor] and Sanjib Mukherjee [a neighbour],” the victim’s father had said after lodging the new FIR on Monday.

CPI-M leader Minakshi Mukherjee along with members of the party’s youth wing had tried to block the cortege carrying the victim’s body from the hospital.

Then Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud during a hearing in the apex court had wondered how the post-mortem could be conducted even before the FIR was filed.

“One thing is clear the body was handed over to the family for cremation at 8.30 pm and the FIR is registered at 11.45 pm, three hours and 15 minutes after the body is handed over for cremation,” then-CJI Chandrachud had observed.

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