A week into the alleged rape and murder of a doctor (a postgraduate trainee at the pulmonary medicine department) at Kolkata’s R G Kar Medical College and Hospital, several theories have surfaced in public discourse about the circumstances in which she was killed. The body of the young doctor was found in the seminar room on the third floor of the emergency building of the hospital on the morning of August 9. Before the investigation was handed over to the CBI on August 13, Sanjay Roy (31), a civic volunteer, was arrested by Kolkata Police as the prime suspect in the alleged crime.
On the intervening night of August 14 and 15, even as large crowds gathered at various prime locations in Kolkata to protest against the horrific crime and seek justice, miscreants barged into the R G Kar hospital premises after midnight, damaged property and pelted stones at the police personnel. At least 30 people have been arrested in this case at the time of this article being written.
Soon after, the claim that the seminar room had been vandalized to destroy crucial evidence in the case started doing the rounds on social media. This correspondent received a screenshot of a WhatsApp group chat among doctors at 1.48 am on August 15 when the vandalism was still on. One person in the chat says, “The seminar room is probably burnt”. Another participant confirms this saying, “Yes. Completely”. The screenshot later went viral.
At 2.02 am — this was the time police had the situation under some control — senior journalist Barkha Dutt tweeted, “The emergency room at #RGKarCollege where the rape and murder took place has been destroyed by a violent mob.”
What is happening at this hour in #Kolkata is absolutely Insane. The emergency room at #RGKarCollege where the rape and murder took place has been destroyed by a violent mob. Multiple doctors I’ve spoken to say “the police did nothing to help us” . Breaking @themojostory pic.twitter.com/ToLfvBS94c
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) August 14, 2024
On August 17, Republic World published a report titled, “Did Rioters Vandalise RG Kar Seminar Room On Purpose to Destroy Evidence? New Video Surfaces”.
As seen above, the blurb below the headline says, “A shocking video has surfaced which hints at the fact that the seminar room was vandalised by the mob on purpose, to destroy evidence.”
The claim went viral on social media as well. Here are a few Facebook posts claiming the same:
Click to view slideshow.Several X (Twitter) users, too, made the same claim while tweeting images of the midnight violence.
Click to view slideshow.Fact Check
To begin with, we noticed that the official X handle of Kolkata Police had quote-tweeted journalist Barkha Dutt and wrote that the crime scene “is Seminar Room which is intact and has not been touched.”
Crime of Scene is Seminar Room which is intact and has not been touched. Don’t spread fake news. We will take legal action. https://t.co/A7PDWYAO4E
— Kolkata Police (@KolkataPolice) August 15, 2024
To this, the journalist replied saying that her tweet was factually correct and she did not claim that the seminar room had been destroyed.
Next, we checked footage from the reportage by various news outlets from the R G Kar Hospital after the vandalism. Independent journalist Tamal Saha of NTT went to the spot and livestreamed a report which starts at a time when police can be seen trying to bring the situation under control.
Around the 42-minute mark in the livestream (Saha mentions that the time is 2.30 am), the journalist enters the hospital building and checks out the gates through which one can go upstairs. He also speaks to the private security guards. Around the 58-minute mark onward, he takes the stairs to the upper floors. The live report shows a wooden door of a store room on the second floor broken and partially separated from its frames. However, the doors of the third (this is the floor where the seminar room is located) and the fourth floors are intact. This is clearly seen in the video and asserted by the journalist who physically checks them. A private security guard who accompanies him confirms that the miscreants could not reach the upper floors and those were locked.
ABP Ananda, too, telecast footage of the attack, where some of the perpetrators are heard saying, ‘Let’s go to the seminar hall.” The bulletin, however, points out that the miscreants could go only as far as the second floor which is one floor below the place of occurrence of the crime, the chest department seminar hall. Journalist Sandip Sarkar’s reporting on ABP Ananda corroborates the reporting by Tamal Saha. The ABP Ananda footage shows the second floor wooden door broken. 
The kicker in Bengali on the above screenshot from the ABP Ananda footage says: “Seminar Hall on third floor, miscreants went up to second floor”.
Alt News is in possession of a photo taken at 11.52 pm on August 16, 2024. This image shows the seminar room locked, sealed and intact from outside. Five policemen can be seen guarding it. We accessed the photo through police sources and we are not permitted to publish it.
Alt News also spoke to a faculty member from the same department at R G Kar Hospital. They confirmed to us that the vandalism on the intervening night of August 14-15 did not cause any damage to the chest department seminar hall (that crime scene).
To sum up, the viral claim that the seminar hall of the chest department of R G Kar hospital in Kolkata, where the body of the slain doctor was found, was destroyed/burnt down in the vandalism on the intervening night of August 14 and 15 is false.
The post Seminar room at R G Kar Hospital – the crime scene – was not impacted by the midnight violence after Kolkata rape & murder appeared first on Alt News.
This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Indradeep Bhattacharyya.
Indradeep Bhattacharyya | Radio Free (2024-08-18T10:58:18+00:00) Seminar room at R G Kar Hospital – the crime scene – was not impacted by the midnight violence after Kolkata rape & murder. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2024/08/18/seminar-room-at-r-g-kar-hospital-the-crime-scene-was-not-impacted-by-the-midnight-violence-after-kolkata-rape-murder/
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