Sanjay, accused in Calcutta, was drunk and argued with a sex worker hours before the crime: friend remembers fateful night

Candlelight vigil for justice for the murdered doctor from Calcutta.

The 31-year-old doctor in training and two of her colleagues watched Neeraj Chopra's javelin fly through the air at the Paris Olympics around 2 a.m. on August 9. About 45 minutes later, her colleagues went to bed for the day, leaving the woman alone in the seminar room.

She and her colleague had no idea at the time that Sanjay Roy – who had been arrested for the rape and murder of the doctor – was enjoying a fun evening not far from the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. Together with his friend and comrade Sourav Bhattacharya, he drank a round of alcohol at Sonagachi in Burtollah, Calcutta's largest red-light district, barely two kilometers from the hospital.

“We drank alcohol,” Bhattacharya later said South first“Sanjay wanted more fun, but he had no luck. He was thrown out of the room after getting into a fight with a sex worker.”

Angered by the unexpected turn of events, the two rode their motorcycle to Chetla, another red-light district in south Kolkata. Bhattacharya claimed he was riding pillion that evening.

“We had another round of alcohol and I went to a room in the brothel. Surprisingly, Sanjay stayed behind. I came back an hour later and he was still there. I sat on the pillion seat again to go back to the barracks and sleep,” said the man in his mid-30s.

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Nefarious plan

However, Roy had other plans. He wanted to return to the hospital. Bhattacharya realised Roy's intention as he passed the Shyambazaar Five-Point Crossing and the two-wheeler approached a bridge over a canal near the health facility, which would attract national attention within hours.

“There is a shortcut along the canal bank to the barracks. Instead of taking that route, he drove towards the hospital. Sanjay stopped in front of the main gate of the hospital and I got out of the vehicle,” Bhattacharya said.

“It was about 3 a.m. on August 9. When he told me he was going back to the hospital, I wanted to know why. He said he wanted to visit a patient. I told him to drop the idea and go back to the barracks in Salt Lake. But he was persistent. I used foul language to stop him, but it didn't work,” the man recalled.

At around 9:30 a.m. that day, one of the junior doctors who had previously accompanied the doctor returned to the seminar room and found her lying there motionless.

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Free access

Bhattacharya and Roy, both volunteers, stayed at the hospital until 10.30pm on August 8 before going out.

Bhattacharya's brother was an inpatient at the hospital. On August 8, he met his brother at the ward around 1.30 am along with Roy. “After meeting my brother with Sanjay at around 1.30 am, we left. We visited my brother again the same day at around 10 pm,” Bhattacharya said.

The men faced no resistance when they visited the station at odd hours. Roy was a frequent visitor to the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital and was known for his close relations with the heads of the Police Welfare Board, a body of lower-ranking police officers that looks after the needs of policemen and their families. Roy used to look after the medical treatment of policemen and their families.

“After consulting the nurses at the reception, we left the hospital at around 10.30 pm on August 8,” he said. The night was still young for the duo. The men drove about two kilometres to Sonagachi, where a sex worker turned Roy away.

End of freewheel

Back at the hospital gate, Bhattacharya stood alone that night. “I saw him enter the hospital. I went back to the barracks and slept,” Bhattacharya said.

Roy was fast asleep in his room when Bhattacharya woke up. “I shook him but he did not wake up. Then I went to the hospital. I called him around noon but he did not respond. At 12.50 pm I called him again. This time he responded. I asked him if he had showered and asked him to have lunch with me in the barracks. He came to me when I had just finished lunch,” Bhattacharya recalled.

The news of the junior doctor's murder had by now become public. As he was leaving, Bhattacharya narrated the incident to Roy. “I asked him to make a few phone calls and find out what exactly happened at RG Kar's house. He said he would do that. I again asked him to accompany me to the hospital. But he avoided going to the hospital and said he wanted to go to the toilet. I returned alone at around 2.30 pm,” he said.

When Bhattacharya Roy called again later, he gave in. “He came with the motorcycle key. I expected him to accompany me to the hospital. He said chol (let's go). But he wanted to go for a drink and not to the hospital. When I asked him to go to the hospital with me on the day of the incident, he evaded every request,” he added.

At around 11.30 pm that day, Bhattacharya learned that the police had arrested Roy. “My brother called from the hospital and said that the police had shown him Sanjay's CCTV footage. When I enquired, I learned that the police had arrested him,” Bhattacharya said.

CCTV images and a headset

Roy's familiarity with police officers and hospital staff helped investigators identify him. They had previously found video footage of Roy going to the third floor and returning, where the doctor was found dead.

The examination and the autopsy report revealed ten external and nine internal injuries to the body. The cause of death was given as “manual strangulation in conjunction with suffocation”.

The CCTV footage shows Roy walking up to the third floor at around 3:30 am with a Bluetooth-enabled headset slung over his shoulder. He is seen walking down the corridor to the seminar room. The same camera captures him walking towards the lift at around 4 am, but this time the headset is missing. Investigators from the Kolkata Crime Branch find the headset near the doctor's body.

After detectives arrested him, Roy continued to deny knowing anything about the incident and tried to mislead investigators by claiming he was out visiting patients. But when police turned on the Bluetooth option on his cell phone, it turned out that the phone was paired with the headphones. That's when investigators realized Roy was the man they were looking for.

On Saturday, August 24, Bhattacharya appeared before the CBI officials investigating the gruesome crime. The federal agency will subject him to a lie detector test.

(Pranab Mondal is a Kolkata-based journalist with 23 years of experience in crime reporting. Edited by Majnu Babu).

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