Kolkata Police joins ghostbusters to rise above fear of unknown – Times of India

Kolkata: A team of ghostbusters, who call themselves Detectives of Supernatural (DoS), has joined hands with Kolkata Police to launch the ‘Rise Above Fear’ campaign that aims to dispel dread of the unknown by providing rational explanations to unnatural occurrences. Started in 2010 by entrepreneur Devraj Sanyal and professor Suvojyoti Roy Chowdhury to investigate claims of paranormal activities and discover the truth behind unexplained phenomena, the core team of Sanyal, his wife Ishita, mechanical engineer Anindam Ghosal and phys-ician Ujjal Gupta has been attempting to eliminate fear of spooky occurrences.
It was a documentary on one of their investigations in Darjeeling’s Dowhill that caught the attention of Kolkata Police and the team received a call from the police headquarters in Lalbazar to explain what they did.
“Of over 200 cases we investigated, more than 99% are cases of mental illness. The only instance when we could not find a plausible explanation was at Dowhill,” said Sanyal.
One of the first cases they were handed by the police was the ‘haunted’ Jorabagan Traffic Guard, located in a heritage building. During a visit to the traffic guard, additional CP (IV) Tanmoy Roy Chowdhury had learnt how a cop had taken a transfer citing spooky experiences and cops residing in the barracks on the second floor often complained of the “presence of a ghost”. “Some would wake up at 2am after a knock on their head and others complained of heaviness in the chest as though someone was sitting on them,” a cop said. Another said he had seen a child sleeping next to him before waking up with a start.
The ghostbusters visited the traffic guard twice — they arrived at 7pm and stayed till 4am, around the time when the experiences apparently occurred. Sanyal was alone on the third floor but did not feel anything.
“First, we try to discover the normal reasons behind what’s happening. Ghost experience can be psychosomatic or due to toxic gas or a powerful electromagnetic field radiation. In this case, it was the latter. There is a telecom tower on the roof and the third floor has a high degree of radiation. We believe this causes sleep disorder and sleep paralysis, which leads to hallucination,” said Sanyal.
The owners of the nearby Putulbari have now sought the team’s help to resolve the ghostly occurrences in the mansion.