RG Kar case: We would have ensured death penalty, says Mamata Banerjee after Sanjay Roy's sentencing

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee voiced her dissatisfaction with the Kolkata court's life sentence for Sanjay Roy in the RG Kar case.

Expressing disappointment over sentencing of Sanjay Roy, the convict in RG Kar rape and murder case, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday categorically said that had the case been under the purview of Bengal government, the dispensation would have ensured a death penalty for the convict.

“I am not satisfied… All of us demanded the death sentence, but the court gave life imprisonment,” Mamata Banerjee said in her first reaction to the Sealdah court's pronouncement.

On Monday, a Kolkata court sentenced Sanjay Roy, the convict in the rape-murder case of a 34-year-old doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, to life imprisonment and noted that the case was not in the 'rarest of the rare' category for a death penalty.

Roy, a former civic volunteer with the Kolkata Police, was arrested on August 10, a day after the 31-year-old medic’s body was found in the seminar room of the hospital.

Speaking to reporters immediately after the court verdict, Banerjee questioned the CBI investigation in the case.

"All of us had demanded a death sentence, but the court has given a life term until death. The case was forcibly taken from us. Had it been with the (Kolkata) police, we would have ensured that he was served a death sentence," she claimed.

"We don’t know how the probe was conducted. In many similar cases that were probed by the state police, the death penalty was ensured. I am not satisfied," she said.

The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Anirban Das in Sealdah had on Saturday found Roy guilty of the crime committed against the postgraduate trainee doctor at the hospital on August 9 last year, which sparked unprecedented and prolonged nationwide protests.

Justice Anirban Das also directed the West Bengal government to pay a sum of Rs 17 lakh to the victim's parents. The victim's parents, who were in the courtroom, folded their hands and said they do not want compensation, but justice. The judge replied that he has ordered the compensation as per law and they are free to use the money however they want. The judge clarified that the family should not see this amount as a compensation for their daughter's rape and murder.