Kolkata/IBNS: It seems like a pandora's box has been opened after the gruesome rape and murder of the trainee doctor at Kolkata's state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital with sexual harassment allegations by a Hong Kong male nurse student in 2017 emerging against Sandip Ghosh, ex-principal of the medical facility, arrested by the CBI on corruption charges.

According to an old South China Morning Post report, now viral on social media, a sexual harassment allegation was laid out against Sandip Ghosh by a Hong Kong nursing student way back in 2017.

As per the report, a Hong Kong nursing student had alleged that an Indian orthopaedist, (read Sandip Ghosh), tried to touch his private parts and even stroked his left buttock, while he was changing his clothes at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Recalling the incident at Kowloon City Court, the nurse claimed that after touching him inappropriately, Ghosh had asked him, "Do you like it?"

Ghosh was then the head of the orthopedics department at West Bengal's Murshidabad Medical College and had travelled to Hong Kong to participate in a clinical attachment programme.

In his defence, Ghosh stated that the incident was a misunderstanding as he had unintentionally touched the nurse student's hip while showing him how to pull his arm to treat his dislocated shoulder. According to him, he meant to say to the nurse, "Do it like this."

Defense witness in the case, Dr. Wilson Li, who oversaw Ghosh at the Queen Elizabeth hospital, testified that Sandip Ghosh's MRI scan conducted later revealed he may have had a dislocated shoulder within the previous six weeks.

According to an Ei Samay report regarding the incident, orthopedic doctor Utpal Banerjee, who also happened to be a colleague of Ghosh, said, "As far back as I can remember, there was a controversy about Sandip's foreign trip at that time."

"He went to Hong Kong and was jailed for sexual harassment. At that time, arrangements were made to bring him back to the country with the help of international contacts and connections of the Orthopaedic Association," Dr Banerjee recalled.

In the present RG Kar case, Sandip Ghsosh has been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation over alleged financial irregularities in the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital during his tenure.

Ghosh is accused of illegal sale of unclaimed corpses, trafficking of biomedical waste, and passing tenders against the commission paid by medicine and medical equipment suppliers.

Allegations against him also include that students were pressured to pay up to Rs. 8 lalk to pass exams.

The Supreme Court as well as the Calcutta High Court has repeatedly questioned why Ghosh, being the principal of the medical college when the brutal crime took place, did not lodge a police complaint.