3 Calls, Last Ended In Wails: When Kolkata Doctor’s Parents Got The News

It was just another morning at the middle class household in north Kolkata. The daughter, who had made her parents proud by becoming a doctor and was studying further, was at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital for a long shift. Around 11.30 pm the previous night, she called her mother and spoke to her, as always. Her mother did not prolong the call. She would have, if she knew it was her last.

On the morning of August 9, three calls within half an hour shattered their little world of contentment and set them off on a fight for justice. NDTV has now accessed audio of the three calls — in Bengali — that parents of the 31-year-old doctor raped and murdered at the Kolkata hospital received that morning. Their voices capture the shock and confusion two elderly parents went through before they reached the hospital to find their daughter dead and brutalised.

The First Call

The parents of the rape-murder victim have told the court that the first call came at 10.53 am. The caller was a woman, who has since been identified as the Assistant Superintendent of the hospital.

Victim’s Father: What has happened, please tell me

Caller: Her condition is very bad, please come as soon as possible

Victim’s Father: Please tell us what has happened

Caller: The doctor will say that, you come fast.

Victim’s Father: Who are you?

Caller: I am the assistant super, not doctor

Victim’s Father: There are no doctors there?

Caller: I am the assistant super. We have brought your daughter to the Emergency. You come and contact us.

Victim’s Mother: What happened to her, she was on duty

Caller: You come fast, as soon as possible.

The Second Call

In the second call, a male voice is heard. By then, the parents have already left for the hospital.

Caller: I am speaking from RG Kar (hospital)

Victim’s Mother: Yes, please say

Caller: You are coming, right?

Victim’s Mother: Yes, we are coming. How is she now?

Caller: You come, we will talk, come to RG Kar Hospital’s chest department HOD

Victim’s mother: Okay

The Third Call

It was in the third call, when the victim’s parents were told that she had died by suicide. This has come up repeatedly in court and judges have asked why the parents were misled. This call was from Assistant Superintendent, who made the first call.

Victim’s Father: Hello

Caller: This is the Assistant Super.

Victim’s Father: Yes

Caller: The matter is that your daughter has probably died by suicide. She is dead, police are here, we are all here, please come as soon as possible.

Victim’s Father: We are coming, right away

Victim’s Mother (screams in the background): My daughter is no more.

The hospital administration’s communication with the victim’s parents is one aspect of this horrifying incident that has repeatedly come under scrutiny in both the Calcutta High Court and the Supreme Court. In their petition in the high court, the parents said they were made to wait for three hours. They suspect that this delay was intentional.

Kolkata Police, however, has contested this. Their timeline claims that the parents reached the hospital at 1 pm and they were taken to the seminar hall, where the body was found, 10 minutes later. The courts have also questioned why the hospital administration, led by then principal Dr Sandip Ghosh, did not file a formal police complaint and the cops had to register an unnatural death case. An FIR was filed only late at night after the victim’s father filed a formal complaint.

Speaking to NDTV, the victim’s father had described the devastating moment when they saw her daughter’s body. “Only I know what I went through when I saw her. There were no clothes on her body. She was only draped in a bedsheet. Her legs were apart, with one hand on her head,” he had said.  

As protests continue and the politics surrounding the issue deepens, the parents’ voices over these three call serve as a reminder to how at the heart of this massive row lies a personal tragedy, a family’s loss of a dream, a dream that their daughter was turning to reality.