SSKM stay over, Madan Mitra fit to be sent back to jail

KOLKATA: Three days after suspended Trinamool Congress MP Kunal Ghosh wrote to a magistrate that minister Madan Mitra was being given better treatment than the others arrested in the Saradha case, SSKM Hospital authorities decided to release Mitra. He will now spend New Year in Alipore jail as his remand is till January 2.
A six-member medical board set up to treat him found the medical reports satisfactory on Saturday.“We have decided to discharge Madan Mitra. The medical board constituted to examine him found nothing serious in the reports so we have decided to discharge him. We are informing the jail authorities and they will now decide when they will take him to the jail,” SSKM director Pradip Mitra said.
Sources in the hospital said several tests were conducted on him to check his heart and other organs but nothing was detected. “He was recommended an angiograph but refused it so the SSKM authorities had no alternative but to declare him medically fit,” a source in the hospital said.
Mitra has been in and out of hospital ever since CBI first served a summons on him on November 18. He first got himself admitted to a private nursing home and then tiptoed out to SSKM when he learnt his tumours wouldn’t need surgery. He was discharged from SSKM on November 26 and was arrested on the very first day of questioning by CBI on December 12. He was referred to SSKM from the Alipore jail hospital on December 19 when he complained of breathlessness.
The minister was initially admitted to the cardiology department was then shifted to the VVIP Woodburn Block. SSKM director Pradip Mitra said Mitra was admitted with “serious ailments” and would have to stay in hospital for some time for a series of tests. However, Mitra said he felt claustrophobic whenever the doctors tried to conduct an MRI test, say sources. And he failed to run on the treadmill for a heart test.
The board — cardiologist Shibanad Dutta, chest specialist Somnath Kundu, endocrinologist Satinath Mukherjee, psychiatrist Pradeip Saha, neurologist Alok Pandit and urologist D Pal — could not find anything wrong with him after eight days and decided to release him.
Mitra’s transfer to an AC room in the VVIP Woodburn Block sparked controversy. Questions were raised from different quarters why he was given VVIP treatment when all the other detainees in the Saradha case were forced to stay in the jail. Kunal Ghosh, who has been in prison for more than a year, accused the government of bias, following which the court asked him to file a written complaint.
On Wednesday, in an application sent to metropolitan magistrate Arvind Mishra through the Presidency jail superintendent, Kunal alleged that some people are given better treatment because they were “part of the larger conspiracy”. “They can meet people and use the phone when I am not even allowed to meet my family. My mother is suffering from blood cancer but I have to wait a whole week before I can get information about her,” Kunal had written.
On Saturday, the hospital authorities were tight lipped about what prompted them to release Mitra so quickly.