Kolkata:
Journalists were today lathicharged at the SSKM hospital in Kolkata to prevent them from taking pictures of suspended Trinamool parliamentarian Kunal Ghosh who allegedly tried to commit suicide yesterday. Mr Ghosh, an accused in the Saradha chit-fund scam, had taken dozens of sleeping pills in his jail cell on Thursday night.
This morning, when Mr Ghosh was being taken from the critical care unit (CCU) to another building in the hospital complex for an Electroencephalography (EEG) test, he told dozens of reporters gathered there that the real culprits of the Saradha scam must be arrested.
While he was being brought back to the CCU, journalists were waiting to take fresh pictures of Mr Ghosh and talk to him if possible. However, when the police escorting Mr Ghosh saw the media, they refused to bring him out of the ambulance. Mr Ghosh was stuck inside the hospital for almost 30 minutes.
A police force of about 30 armed men with lathis was called in and charged the waiting mediapersons, during which several journalists sustained injuries.
The police took Mr Ghosh inside the hospital building during the melee.
Arrested last November, Mr Ghosh reportedly told jail officials at 2:30 am Friday that he had taken 58 sleeping pills. To doctors, he reportedly told it was closer to 30 to 40 pills.
The jail superintendent, doctor and guards have been suspended. How Mr Ghosh accessed so many of the pills he had reportedly been prescribed for insomnia is being investigated.
Mr Ghosh, who was the chief of the Saradha Group's media operations, has named top Trinamool leaders as beneficiaries of the chit fund group but has been discredited by his party.
On Monday, he had threatened in court that he will take his own life if the "real beneficiaries" of the chit fund scam were not arrested.
Mr Ghosh was the only Trinamool leader named in the Central Bureau of Investigation's first charge sheet in the Saradha case.
The Saradha Group operated a Ponzi scheme offering massive returns of 40 per cent and more until it collapsed last year, leaving lakhs of small investors bankrupt in West Bengal and Odisha.
Mr Ghosh has often suggested that the CBI should question his party chief Mamata Banerjee along with him. The Left alleged a conspiracy.