A controversy erupted after some news channel reports claimed that the colour of the bedsheet covering the victim's body had mysteriously changed.
Fresh revelations in the Kolkata doctor rape and murder case surfaced on Thursday, including purported audio recordings of phone calls allegedly made by RG Kar Medical College authorities on August 9 morning to the parents of the victim and claims of the bedsheet used to cover the body being changed during the probe, a charge denied by the Kolkata Police.
Addressing media on Wednesday, Kolkata Police Deputy Commissioner (DC) of the Central Division Indira Mukherjee dismissed the claims regarding the bedsheet as baseless.
The controversy was erupted after some news channel reports claimed that the colour of the bedsheet covering the victim's body had mysteriously changed.
The reports claimed junior doctors and the victim's parents gave conflicting accounts of the sheet's colour. The junior doctors stated that the body was covered with a blue sheet, but the parents claimed they saw a green sheet when they viewed their daughter's body hours later.
Reacting to the same, the Kolkata Police DCP said on Thursday, "Today, we have seen that there are few video clips which are viral on social media as well as in some television channels wherein there is a discussion that probably the colour of the curtain bed sheet which was used to cover the body was of a different colour than the previously declared color that was blue."
DCP Indira Mukherjee said that the police had properly documented the crime scene, starting their photography and videography session at around 12:25pm on the day of the incident.
The case pertains to a trainee doctor of the RG Kar Medical College & Hospital of West Bengal's Kolkata whose body with severe injury marks was found inside the seminar hall of the facility's chest department in the morning of August 9.
Sanjay Roy, a civic volunteer, was on August 10 arrested on allegations of raping and killing the trainee doctor A CCTV footage and a Bluetooth device found near the medic's body resulted in the arrest of Roy, who was allegedly seen entering the seminar hall of the college where the body was found at around 4 am.
Three purported audio recordings of phone calls, allegedly made on August 9 morning by authorities of RG Kar Medical College, where the alleged rape and murder took place, to the parents of the victim asking them to report to the hospital, surfaced on public domain on Thursday and sparked a fresh controversy over "insensitivity" and "disinformation" of the institute's management in breaking bad news.
The changes in statements on the status of the victim made by an official in those phone calls, whose authenticity has not been individually verified, raise questions on whether the hospital was initially trying to cover up the ghastly crime.
The caller, a woman who identified herself as the assistant superintendent of the hospital, 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 clear changes in the hospital's statement in the three calls - 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", news agency PTI quoted an official as saying.
DCP Indira Mukherjee reacted to the purported audio clips on Thursday and said, "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."