KOLKATA — The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has summoned youth CPI(M) leader Meenakshi Mukherjee as a witness for interrogation in the ghastly rape and murder of a junior doctor of R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in Kolkata last month.
Mukherjee has been asked to be present at the CBI’s Salt Lake office in the northern outskirts of Kolkata by 11 a.m. on Thursday. The party’s politburo member and state secretary in West Bengal Md Salim said that Mukherjee, who is out of station now, will reach the city on Thursday morning only and from the station she will be going straight to the CBI office.
After the body of the victim was recovered from the seminar hall of the hospital premises on the morning of August 9, Mukherjee rushed to the scene and was one of the few to interact with the victim’s parents that day.
The CPI(M) leadership had claimed several times that she was the one who resisted the attempts by the city police to immediately cremate the body of the victim.
It is learnt that a few days back Mukherjee received a call from a number where a person identifying himself as a CBI officer asked her to be present at CBI’s Salt Lake for questioning as witness in the rape and murder case.
The CPI(M) leadership thereafter crosschecked the credential of the caller and became sure that he was a member of the CBI’s team investigating the rape and murder case.
Sources said that Mukherjee was also at a protest venue near R.G. Kar at midnight on August 14, when a group of antisocial elements vandalized the emergency department of R.G. Kar.
The vandalism took place at a time when thousands of people were there on the streets in different pockets of the state as part of 'Meyera Raat Dakhal Koro (women, reclaim the night)' protesting against the macabre tragedy.
The state government and the Kolkata Police came under massive criticism following the incident. While some claimed that the attack was done deliberately to divert attention from the protest programme, some claimed that it was an attempt to destroy evidence at the scene of crime within the hospital premises.
Sources said that Mukherjee might also be questioned by the CBI sleuths about her experience on that night.