Suspended Trinamool MP Kunal Ghosh allegedly attempts suicide in Kolkata jail
Kolkata: Suspended Trinamool Congress MP and Saradha scam accused Kunal Ghosh allegedly tried to commit suicide on Friday by taking sleeping pills inside the Alipore Central Jail, West Bengal Correctional Home Services Minister H A Swafi said.
Ghosh has been admitted to a state-run hospital.
"Kunal Ghosh claimed that he has taken sleeping pills to commit suicide. He later on called the doctor and they found everything to be normal but still as a precautionary measure we did not take any chance and got him admitted to the SSKM Hospital," the minister said.
Doctors there have kept Ghosh, an accused in the Saradha scam, under observation.
On November 10 when he was produced before a city court, Ghosh had threatened to commit suicide if the CBI did not take proper action against "those involved" within three days.
"Investigation is being influenced. It is not acceptable that I will rot in jail while those involved will roam freely. I am giving three days' time, if action is not taken I will commit suicide," the suspended Trinamool Congress MP had told Metropolitan Magistrate Arvind Mishra at Bankshall Court.
"I pray to you to pass an order that during these three days, none of my relatives or my lawyer be allowed to meet me or else I may get influenced and dissuaded," Ghosh, who had during earlier court hearings accused some top Trinamool Congress leaders of having benefited from the scam, told the judge on that day.
Ghosh, a journalist by profession, is a former CEO of Saradha Group firm Bengal Media Ltd.
A top jail department official said, "As he had threatened (to commit suicide), we had kept extra watch on him for the past two days. Before going to sleep we searched him thoroughly. But no sedative or sleeping pill of that sort was found in his possession.
"But at around 2:30 AM he started complaining of breathlessness and claimed he had taken pills following which jail doctors called on him, examined him thoroughly but did not find anything abnormal. Still we did not take any chance," the official said.
