Kolkata doctor rape case: Heard viral audio clip, police didn’t call it suicide, says top cop

A top Kolkata Police official stated on Friday that they had reviewed the viral audio clips and denied calling the incident a suicide. “Never said that it was a suicide,” police said. The official was referring to the rape and murder of the 31-year-old trainee doctor of the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

"We heard some audio clips that were rolled by many channels...No such comments have been made by Kolkata Police. We never said that it was a suicide," Indira Mukherjee, Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Central Division, said.

Mukherjee's comment came after an audio clip purportedly recording the first three conversations between parents of the trainee doctor and a staff of the Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital surfaced on social media on Thursday. The phone conversation was purportedly between the family and the assistant superintendent of the hospital.

The 'suicide' call

Mint could not independently verify the authenticity of of the viral audio clip. It, however, matched with what the deceased doctor's parents earlier claimed about receiving the first information from a woman who identified herself as an assistant superintendent of the hospital, the Hindustan Times reported.

The caller, a woman who identified herself as the assistant superintendent of the hospital but didn't reveal her name, reportedly dialed the parents of the victim from the same number thrice within a span of around 30 minutes asking their urgent presence at the facility.

The conversation in Bangla was transcribed by news agency PTI as follows:

"I am calling from RG Kar hospital. Can you come over immediately?" the caller could be heard telling the victim's father when he picked his phone the first time around 10.53 that morning.

The father responded, "Why? What has happened?" To this, the caller replied, "Your daughter has fallen a little ill. We are admitting her in the hospital. Can you come down quickly?"

When the parent insisted on more details, the caller was heard saying, "Those details only doctors can provide. We only managed to find your number and call you. Please come down quickly. The patient has been admitted after falling ill. The rest, the doctors will brief you after you arrive."

The worried mother of the victim could be heard asking from the background, "Is she running a fever?"

"Come over quickly," was the caller's reply.

"Is her condition very serious?" the father's voice was heard asking. "Yes, she is very serious. Come quickly," was the response from the other end.

The call lasted for a minute and 11 seconds.

The second phone call, which lasted for about 46 seconds, arrived some five minutes later. It was perceptively from the same caller and she was heard saying, "Her condition is critical, very critical. Please come over as soon as you can."

To a desperate appeal from the father asking what happened to his daughter, the voice at the other end repeated, "Only doctors can say that.

You please come over."

When the father asked her to reveal her identity, the caller said, "I am the assistant superintendent. I am not a doctor. We have brought your daughter to the emergency ward. You please come over and contact us."

"But what could have happened to her? She was on duty," a panic-stricken mother's voice could be heard in the background.

"You come over quickly, as soon as you can," was the reply.

The third and final call was the one which pronounced the death of the victim, albeit with a twist.

"Yes, please listen… we were repeatedly telling you before… your daughter… may have… died by suicide… or, she may have passed away. The police are here. All of us from the hospital are here. We are calling you to ask you to come down quickly," the apparently same voice from the first two calls announced in disjointed sentences.

The final call lasted for 28 seconds.

The clear changes in the hospital's statement, from the victim "falling a little ill" to "very critical and admitted in emergency ward" to, finally, "may have died by suicide" have left the investigators to question whether "a carefully planned suicide plot was being hatched by the hospital authorities and police to cover up the crime", an official told news agency PTI.

(With inputs from PTI)