Bengal badly needs a pill - Kunal overdose, days after threat

Kunal Ghosh, the suspended Trinamul MP at SSKM hospital in Calcutta on Friday after an alleged suicide attempt

TT, Nov. 14: Kunal Ghosh, a suspended Trinamul MP and one of the main accused in the Saradha case, was hospitalised this morning after a suspected overdose of anti-anxiety pills.

Officials described the episode as a “suicide attempt”, citing a four-page note found in his Presidency jail cell and a threat by him four days ago to end his life within 72 hours if the CBI did not probe the Saradha case “properly”.

The condition of Ghosh, 46, who was wheeled into SSKM Hospital around 3am on Friday, was described as “stable” this evening.

The alleged suicide attempt brought the Saradha scandal back to centre-stage. Ghosh, whose fall has been as dramatic as his rise had been when Mamata Banerjee came to power, has tormented Trinamul the most on the scandal.

In the note found in the jail, Ghosh sought “immediate action” against chief minister Mamata Banerjee, some other leaders of the party and senior administrative officials, according to sources.

A journalist-turned-MP, Ghosh was last month charged by the CBI with criminal conspiracy, cheating and criminal breach of trust in the Saradha case.

The alleged suicide attempt also stirred questions on how Ghosh could lay his hands on anti-anxiety pills inside the prison — especially after publicly threatening to commit suicide this week.

“He was not thoroughly scanned last evening while being sent to his cell at 5.30pm. It appears that the pills were inside his innerwear and went undetected,” said a senior official of the jail department.

It was not clear when and how he consumed so many pills — two guards keep a watch on Ghosh — but sources said that a prison officer on rounds spotted his unusual breathing pattern before waking him up.

“Ghosh said that he was feeling uneasy and that he had taken several anti-anxiety pills,” said a source. The jail doctor was alerted around 2.40am, following which he was taken to SSKM and admitted to the critical care unit.

Sources in the prison department said the officials of the Presidency jail were asked to be on extra-alert following his suicide threat and it was decided that a senior warden would check his cell every two hours.

Besides, it was decided to scan the former Trinamul MP twice. The jail code prescribes that all inmates returning to their wards/cells should be scanned once before lockdown at 5.30pm.

The alleged suicide attempt suggested the measures were not followed. Ghosh is in CBI custody but he was lodged in Presidency jail, a state prison. “We will file a petition in court seeking to know how so many tablets reached Kunal Ghosh in jail,” CBI director Ranjit Sinha said.

The alleged suicide attempt gave the Opposition a chance to hit out at the Mamata Banerjee government.

“It is alarming that Bengal police and the jail authorities allowed him to attempt suicide inside the jail after he had already made his intention clear. Since Kunal Ghosh is a prime witness in the Shardha scam, Bengal police should have been more alert and monitored him 24x7,” said BJP national secretary Sidharth Nath Singh.

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As Ghosh has been a source of constant embarrassment for the ruling Trinamul (he had publicly said the CBI should interrogate Mamata and him together), his alleged suicide attempt in a state prison posed uncomfortable questions for the government at a time the Assembly was in session. The refrain in the House complex was whether adequate security arrangements were made.

Mamata was in the Assembly when SUCI legislator Tarun Naskar drew her attention to the “attempted suicide by a person in the jail”.

Following a briefing from home secretary Basudeb Banerjee, Mamata said: “A high-level investigation committee headed by the home secretary has been formed to probe the matter… An hourly-monitoring system is in place in the prisons. Everything is being looked into.”

“It is sad that those who cheated the maximum number of people are being turned into saints,” she said, before adding that the jail superintendent, the medical officer who had prescribed the medicines and others on duty were suspended.

Mamata Banerjee at the Assembly complex on Friday. Picture by Amit Datta

Sources said that Ghosh had told jail doctor Prasanta Kumar Ghosh that he was insomniac and needed pills. Accordingly, he was prescribed a pill. But no one explained how Ghosh got hold of 22 to 30 pills.

Against payment, several items can be smuggled into prisons. The personnel going out for weekly shopping are a usual source. Weekly meetings with family and friends offer another opportunity if the guards are bribed.

While food, soaps, cigarettes, shaving sets and gels usually account for the large consignments that are smuggled in, the most coveted object is the SIM card, sources said.

Records suggest that from January to July 2014, as many as 499 SIM cards had been seized from the state prisons. Presidency jail alone accounted for 174 of the cards, followed by Dum Dum with 140.

Last Monday, Ghosh had said that for the next three days he didn’t want to meet either his family members or his lawyer Soumajit Raha, according to sources who suggested the chances of visitors supplying the pills were remote.

“Ghosh had got the strips from inside,” said a senior police officer.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee in the Assembly: The doctors’ report states his (Kunal Ghosh’s) blood pressure is 110/70. 

Dr Tarun Naskar, is the blood pressure all right?

Naskar: Ami daktar noi, I am not a doctor. 

(The SUCI MLA holds a PhD in mechanical engineering)

Mamata: Dr Abu Hena?

Hena: No, I am not a doctor. 

(The Congress MLA is an advocate)

Mamata: Dr Manas Bhuniya? Dr Nirmal Maji?”

(Both are qualified medical doctors. While Maji, the Trinamul parliamentary secretary, nodded, Bhuniya, a Congress MLA, remained silent)

For the record, 110/70 is not considered abnormal,