Kolkata, Aug 25 (IANS): The demonstrator of the Forensic Medicine department of the controversy-stricken R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in Kolkata was taken to the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) Nizam Palace office on Sunday by the agency officials probing the financial irregularities at state-run institution.

Earlier in the morning, a team of CBI officials reached the residence of Debabish Shom at Kestopur on the northern outskirts of Kolkata and after a marathon raid and search operation there for around eight hours, took him with them to their office in central Kolkata.

However, till the time the report was filed, it was not clear whether Shom had been arrested or just detained for the purpose of interrogation. Known to be a close confidant of the former and controversial R.G Kar Principal Sandip Ghosh, Shom had been named in the petition filed at Calcutta High Court by the hospital's former Deputy Superintendent Akhtar Ali, the whistle-blower on the financial irregularities at the hospital.

In fact, it was on Ali’s petition that a single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court had, on last Friday, directed the CBI to take over the investigation in the matter.

The CBI is conducting a multi-angle probe into the matter with the main focus of the investigation being Ghosh.

Besides Shom and Ghosh, the hospital's former Medical Superintendent & Vice Principal Sanjay Vashisth and medical equipment supplier Biplab Sinha are also on the scanner of the CBI officials investigating the matter.

Ghosh has already been questioned by the officials of CBI’s special crime unit for nine consecutive days since August 16 in connection with the rape and murder of a woman junior doctor of R.G Kar earlier this month. On an average, he was questioned for 12 to 14 hours only on a daily basis. The CBI officials, sources said, are now trying to track the links between the two cases, the first being that of rape and murder and the second being the financial irregularities.