Three weeks after the horrific rape and the fatal assault on 31-year-old second year postgraduate medical student-cum-resident doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata , as expected, the focus has shifting towards politics, which initially focused on issue of heinous crime against women at hospital workplace. Immediately after the incident, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) called on Union Health Minister J P Nadda to come out with a special central law aimed at preventing violence against doctors.
It urged that hospitals be designated as safe zones. This appeal was followed by widespread protests and strikes by resident doctors across the country in response to the crime, raising serious concerns about the safety of medical staff. As part of suo motu responsibility, the Supreme Court constituted a committee on safety of medical professionals to have wider consultations soon. The first meeting of the National Task Force (NTF), set up to ensure the safety of medical professionals at the workplace, in accordance with directions of the Supreme Court, was held on Tuesday.
It is unfortunate that our independent India requires sacrifice of someone’s life to wake up to understand the gravity of the issue. Around 12 years ago, when a nationwide protest took place after the infamous Nirbhaya case in New Delhi, a judicial committee was set up to study and take public suggestions to amend laws to provide quicker investigation and prosecution of offenders. Based on this report, Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, was promulgated by the then President Pranab Mukherjee. Let us hope that the recommendation of the NTF constituted by the Supreme Court brings some relief to safety and work autonomy for the medical student fraternity, right from their education to practice.
Coming to the post Nirbhaya case scenario in India, it is a reality that in spite of stringent laws being in place with a lot of funds spent on awareness in judiciary and policing, heinous crimes are still taking place. In our medical field, we feel that prevention is better than cure. Hence, it is high time that besides legal and judiciary efforts, we start talking about identifying possible offenders around us. Sounds strange, isn’t it? Read a bestselling book written by Swedish behavioural expert Thomas Erikson, “ Surrounded by Psychopaths: Or, How to Stop Being Exploited by Others’ published two years ago on Sunday Times. This book is very popular among criminal psychologists. According to this behavioural expert, what makes a psychopath most dangerous is that most of the time, they are charming, charismatic and delightful or manipulative, self-serving and cunning. The book is aimed at teaching readers how to deal with psychopaths in their lives by becoming aware of their own behaviour and their weaknesses. There are vivid examples in the form of stories provided to illustrate ways that psychopaths can take advantage of various behaviour types, helping readers identify their own weaknesses and be proactive about protecting themselves.
Erikson outlines some of the most common forms of manipulation used by psychopaths—and others—to influence those around them. Since manipulation can often be a feature of ordinary, non-psychopathic relationships, the book also includes practical methods and techniques to help readers confront controlling people and rehabilitate negative relationships into mutually respectful ones. Let us not enter on review of this book, rather we can recall some Kolkata like criminal cases in Goa and compare them with the accused Sanjay Roy.
On the fateful intervening night of August 8 and 9, 2024, the deceased resident doctor had dinner with her colleagues and retired in a seminar hall after a one-and-half day shift in the hospital. The next morning, she was discovered dead in the same seminar hall in a semi-nude state with her eyes, mouth, and private parts bleeding. There is an allegation that initially, the college authorities had informed her family that she had committed suicide. The Kolkata Police took over the case, and a team of doctors conducted an autopsy in the evening, which was videographed. Thereafter a case of murder and rape was registered around midnight. Based on the CCTV footage and connecting proof of a Bluetooth device found at the crime scene, Kolkata Police arrested civic volunteer Sanjay Roy on August 10, wherein he confessed the crime. Following High Court intervention, the case was handed over to CBI and a psycho-analysis test was conducted at Central Forensic Science Laboratory at Delhi, while the accused was in the central agency’s custody. In this regard, PTI quoted CBI officials saying that “he showed no remorse and was unflustered while narrating the incident.” In the last four decades, Goa has seen similar psychopaths. May it be ‘Narakasur’, who raped and killed a school going girl and hung her dead body to a tree in Porvorim area, or Satyawan Gaonkar, who murdered two women to steal mangasutra, or dupatta killer Mahanand Naik, or serial killers Chandrakant Talwar and Cyron Rodrigues, who have been sentenced to life in three rape and murder cases, including the murder of a minor girl from Taleigao.
Let us have some comparisons. In the Kolkata case, police and CBI have cracked the case with enough evidence to try this case in court and get conviction for the act committed by the offender. Discussions presently going on in the media and social media platforms are something more than just crime and its trial. The accused is not a simple person. The two-wheeler, which he used to visit the crime scene, belongs to Kolkata Police. He works with the police as a civic volunteer. The reports allege his close association with the then Principal of that College and his police colleagues. We cannot judge the authenticity of this information, but comparing it with our local experience, it is quite possible. It is a known fact that psychopaths make inroads by developing such contacts and relationships. It reminds me of rape of a minor girl by a fisherman from Agasaim. He was arrested as his semen tested positive following a test on the victim girl’s clothes. In this case, many senior doctors from our hospital doubted whether our report was genuine. He was popularly known as ‘Santan- the fisherman’ in our hospital. Similar to the Kolkata accused, he was a self-declared civic volunteer as he helped villagers for medical help in our hospital. He used to oblige helping senior doctors at that time through ‘fish gifts’. By this way, he had direct access to most senior doctors of that time, hence was very popular at village level as an influential person in GMC. When news spread about his arrest, these people could not believe that he was the rapist. The evidence provided by teacher Dr E J Rodrigues, in the Sessions Court before Judge Nutan Sardesai, was so powerful that the accused was sentenced to seven years imprisonment, which was later on enhanced by the High Court to ten years.
Same was the case with Mahanand. Actually, he could have been caught in the very first case, but he used rickshaw drivers for agitation and diverted the attention of the police. It has been said that he used to act as a police informant in petty crimes in the locality. In one case, police hired his rickshaw to transport a dead person, who had killed another. In Nirbhaya case in Delhi, the girl was raped and assaulted by a driver of public transport, which she boarded unaware of the criminal intention of driver, who stopped bus for lift. The three murders committed by Chandrakant Talwar and Cyron Rodrigues were of similar type. All three girls killed by this duo were standing by the roadside waiting for public transport. These people offered them lifts, victims did not suspect their intention as one more female was sitting in their car.
The Narkasur case took place in the 80s. Parents filed a police complaint at Porvorim that their school going daughter was missing. The villagers including the accused Narkasur started searching for the girl all around. In fact, Narkasur was leading the search operation to an extent that he jumped in a well to find out if she had fallen into the water. After several rounds of the hill, he took people near the tree where the girl’s body was hanging. Like the Kolkata case, Bluetooth pieces found at crime scene and remaining part found in possession of accused, confirmed the accused's involvement, a golden pendant was found on the clothes of deceased girl and the golden chain found in possession of the accused Narkasur, helped police confirm his involvement in the crime. Similarly, in the case of Satywan Gaunkar, he was almost chased by a police dog squad for his first murder, but he was lucky, as the dogs chased after noticing chicken bone pieces in the poultry of the accused. The next day, he led an agitation against police to find the accused. In this case, the police falsely arrested a constable as accused, who was declared innocent as Satyawan Gaonkar was caught after committing second murder.
In short, psychopaths like Sanjay Roy are around us but it is difficult to identify them.
(Dr Madhu Ghodkirekar is
an Associate Professor in
Forensic Medicine and
Toxicology at Goa Medical
College and Hospital)