The autopsy of the nurse, whose body was found at a private nursing home in Singur on Wednesday night, was conducted on Saturday at AIIMS Kalyani in keeping with the demand of her family members.

Her family members also sought a CBI probe, expressing their lack of faith in Bengal police. Her father said he believed she had been raped and killed.

“Because of police non-cooperation, my daughter’s autopsy was conducted after three days. I believe my daughter was killed after being raped. After a long fight, we managed to get her autopsy done at the place we wanted. Now we want a CBI probe as we don’t trust the police to conduct a fair probe,” said the grieving father after the body reached their home in Nandigram, East Midnapore.

According to sources, the 26-year-old nurse had recently completed her education and joined the Singur nursing home three days before her body was found hanging at her workplace on Wednesday night. The family alleged her body was taken away to the Serampore Walsh Hospital in Hooghly even before they could reach the spot.

The issue took a political turn after the family accused the Hooghly police of being hand-in-glove with the nursing home owners to suppress the actual cause of death by passing it off as suicide.

On Friday, BJP and CPM workers protested at the Serampore Walsh Hospital, which had referred the body to the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital for post-mortem. The CPM and BJP workers got involved in a scuffle when the body reached the Calcutta hospital on Friday evening, accusing each other of helping Trinamool.

The police eventually consented to the post-mortem at AIIMS Kalyani on Saturday, as demanded by the family.

‘Socio-political’ reason

In a letter forwarding the nurse’s body to Calcutta, Serampore Walsh Hospital superintendent Pranabesh Halder cited the “socio-political situation” as one of the reasons behind referring the autopsy elsewhere.

“Now, as per medical expertise and the socio-political situation, this case is being sent to you for post-mortem examination,” the letter stated.

The Opposition highlighted the mention of the “socio-political situation”, saying the letter exposed Bengal’s grim reality where even post-mortems cannot be conducted freely.

“The way the family was harassed for days for their daughter’s post-mortem is condemnable. This is not the only family demanding a CBI probe. In most cases, even families of minority communities have the same demand. But the most shocking issue is that a government hospital official admitted in writing that the post-mortem could not be done because of the socio-political situation,” said BJP state president
Samik Bhattacharya.

“It shows how helpless officials are in this state,” added Bhattacharya, who is also a Rajya Sabha member.

A CPM leader said the trail of events echoed what happened in the immediate aftermath of the rape and murder of the doctor at the RG Kar hospital in August 2024. “We won’t let this happen this time,” the CPM leader said.

Halder defended his letter, saying it reflected the real circumstances at the hospital. “There is no controversy. We have only one forensic expert here, and the family did not give consent (to the autopsy there),” said Halder.

“We all know how political leaders get involved, and that is what I wrote. In case of any complication, we usually refer patients or bodies for post-mortem to Calcutta Medical College. This is the practice we follow,” he added

Trinamool state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said: “I don’t know the reason (for the letter), but it may be due to the politics of the BJP and CPM there.”

On Saturday evening, when the body of the nurse reached her Nandigram home, members of various political parties gathered to stand by the bereaved family.

A local Trinamool leader in Nandigram — the Assembly constituency of the BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari — said they wanted a fair probe and punishment for culprits if the case turned out to be murder.