Adhir backs RG Kar victim's father's claim of police offering him money 

Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Thursday backed the RG Kar rape-murder victim's father's claim that he was offered money by the police when his daughter's body was lying in another room of his house.

"When I first visited their house on Saturday (August 31), the victim's father had told me that money was offered to him by police. I told this to press reporters also when I talked to them after coming out of the house," Chowdhury told the ABP-Ananda news channel.

Media reports on Adhir's visit to the victim's home on August 31 mentioned the Congress leader telling the media about the victim's father complaining to him about police offering him money for expediting the cremation of the body of his daughter.

Participating in a candlelight vigil called by junior doctors at RG Kar hospital in Kolkata on Wednesday, the victim’s father said the Deputy Commissioner (North) of Kolkata Police offered him money when his daughter's body was lying in another room of the house.

"DC north entered our house and offered us money. We told him what we had to,” the victim's father said.

However, later, a new video surfaced with the parents denying any bribery, calling the claims false and politically motivated.

The Tribune has not independently verified the authenticity of the latest video.

The father of the 31-year-old junior doctor also alleged on Wednesday night that they were pressured to cremate their daughter's body in a hurry even though they did not want that.

"We wanted to keep her body. But there was so much pressure on us. We were sitting in front of Tallah police station for an hour and about 300-400 police personnel surrounded us and created such a situation that we were almost forced to return home," he said.

"When we returned home, we saw that 300-400 policemen had barricaded our house. The circumstances were such that we were left with nothing more to do. We were forced to cremate our daughter’s body,” he said.

The father said that the fee for his daughter’s cremation was waived. “Who did that? We don’t know that till today. Our daughter must have thought even in death her father could not spend that little amount for her. How heartbreaking that day was for me,” he said.