Santosh Kumar Mitra was a surgeon in Kolkata, India. He was born in Calcutta on 16 December 1933, the son of Surendra Krishna Mitra, a businessman, and Sudhira Mitra née Sinha, the daughter of a businessman. He was educated at the Central School, Vidyasagar College and the National Medical College, all in Calcutta. He qualified in 1958 and gained the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1970 and of the English College in 1972. He listed K C Mukerjee and S Lahini as particularly influential teachers. In 1971, he married a Miss Ghosh. They had a daughter. Santosh Kumar Mitra died on 2 February 2015. He was 81.