A file picture of Bappa and his family

Siliguri, Aug. 22: Bappa Debnath’s family has filed an FIR against a doctor who is also the subject of a hospital inquiry, a day after the 32-year-old was found hanging at his residence.

The Debnath family has alleged that Bappa was a victim of a doctor-tout nexus that spurred him into committing suicide yesterday and demanded that Sagar Narang should be booked for murder. They have accused Narang, a surgeon of the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital, of conniving with an ambulance driver to shift him to a nursing home.

Bappa, a motor mechanic, had been brought to the NBMCH after an accident in December but taken to the nursing home where Narang operated on him. The operation went awry and Bappa was crippled.

“We have filed an FIR for the first time at the Siliguri police station against Dr Sagar Narang because of whom Bappa was forced to end his life. This should be considered as a murder and not a suicide. An inquiry committee constituted by the NBMCH authorities, too, had found the doctor guilty but no steps have been taken against him. We demand severe punishment against him so that doctors do not rob poor people like us,” said Paresh Chakraborty, Bappa’s brother-in-law.

On December 11, Bappa was rushed to the NBMCH after a car hit him and he suffered a leg fracture. Bappa’s wife Shobha had alleged that Narang who was at the emergency ward of the NBMCH had told her that his leg would have to be amputated. Later, the mechanic was shifted to the nursing home on the advice of the ambulance driver who gave her Narang’s card on way to the private clinic.

“Bappa was taken to the SSKM Hospital in Calcutta on April 7 and had his bone grafting and skin grafting. He was brought home on July 12. We were supposed to take him for a check-up on August 30. We had also arranged for a digital X-ray on August 27, but he was very depressed and used to say that he would never get back on his feet,” Chakraborty said.

Before Bappa was taken to Calcutta, he was admitted to the Siliguri District Hospital and then again to the NBMCH following an agitation by the Trinamul Congress. An inquiry was also ordered.

J.B. Saha, the NBMCH principal, said he had forwarded the inquiry report to the director of medical education in Calcutta. “I do not have any authority to take step against the doctor. Whatever is to be done will be done by our superiors,” he had said yesterday.

Since Bappa’s accident, Shobha had been working as a domestic help. Two days ago his 72 year-old father, Biren Debnath, had taken up a guard’s job to look after the family. The couple have three children, Raju, 11, Pinki, 7, and Sanju, 3.

The FIR filed by Bappa’s family has been forwarded to Matigara police station under whose jurisdiction the NBMCH falls. “We have received the FIR and an investigation will be initiated,” said an officer of Matigara police station.