Holding candles and posters that said “reclaim the night,” women held marches across cities, including the eastern Indian city of Kolkata, where the rape and murder of a trainee doctor last week has triggered protests by fellow medics, demanding better and safer working conditions.
Many government hospitals in cities across India suspended all services except emergency departments earlier this week, as junior doctors sat outside in protest, demanding justice for the victim.
The 31-year-old doctor was found dead on Friday. Police said she had been raped and murdered and a police volunteer was subsequently arrested in connection with the crime.
“As a society, we have to think about the atrocities being committed against our mothers, daughters and sisters. There is outrage against this in the country. I can feel this outrage,” Modi said in an address to the nation on its 78th Independence Day on Thursday.
The rape has revived memories of a similar case in New Delhi in 2012, when a gang of men raped and severely injured a 23-year-old student in a moving Delhi bus, leading eventually to her death.
“This horrific incident has once again reminded us that women disproportionately bear the weight of ensuring their own safety,” Bollywood actor Alia Bhatt said in a post on her Instagram page, which has more than 85 million followers.
Doctors in India’s crowded and often squalid government hospitals have long complained of being overworked and underpaid, and say not enough is done to curb violence levelled at them by people angered over the medical care on offer.
Crimes against women in India rose 4 percent in 2022 from the previous year, data from the National Crime Records Bureau, released late last year, showed.
India’s top police agency Wednesday took over investigations into the brutal rape and murder of young medic, a killing that has sparked outrage and fellow doctors to go on strike.
The 31-year-old woman’s brutalized body was found last week in a state-run hospital in West Bengal’s Kolkata, where she was a resident doctor.
A subsequent autopsy confirmed sexual assault and homicide.
In a petition to the court, the victim’s parents have said that they suspected their daughter was gang-raped, according to Indian broadcaster NDTV.
Doctors in government hospitals across several states have halted elective services “indefinitely,” demanding speedy justice and better workplace security.
While police have detained a man who worked at the victim’s hospital helping people navigate busy queues, officers have been accused of alleged mishandling of the case.
Kolkata’s High Court on Tuesday transferred the case to the elite Central Bureau of Investigation to “inspire public confidence.”
Sexual violence against women is a widespread problem in India — an average of nearly 90 rapes a day were reported in 2022 in the country of 1.4 billion people.
The gruesome nature of the attack have invoked comparisons with the horrific 2012 gang rape and murder of a young on a Delhi bus.
The woman became a symbol of the socially conservative country’s failure to tackle sexual violence against women.
Her death sparked huge, and at times violent, demonstrations in Delhi and elsewhere.
Under pressure, the government introduced harsher penalties for rapists, and the death penalty for repeat offenders.
Several new sexual offenses were also introduced, including stalking and jail sentences for officials who failed to register rape complaints.
The 31-year-old woman’s brutalized body was found last week in a state-run hospital in West Bengal’s Kolkata, where she was a resident doctor.
A subsequent autopsy confirmed sexual assault and homicide.
In a petition to the court, the victim’s parents have said that they suspected their daughter was gang-raped, according to Indian broadcaster NDTV.
Doctors in government hospitals across several states have halted elective services “indefinitely,” demanding speedy justice and better workplace security.
While police have detained a man who worked at the victim’s hospital helping people navigate busy queues, officers have been accused of alleged mishandling of the case.
Kolkata’s High Court on Tuesday transferred the case to the elite Central Bureau of Investigation to “inspire public confidence.”
Sexual violence against women is a widespread problem in India — an average of nearly 90 rapes a day were reported in 2022 in the country of 1.4 billion people.
The gruesome nature of the attack have invoked comparisons with the horrific 2012 gang rape and murder of a young on a Delhi bus.
The woman became a symbol of the socially conservative country’s failure to tackle sexual violence against women.
Her death sparked huge, and at times violent, demonstrations in Delhi and elsewhere.
Under pressure, the government introduced harsher penalties for rapists, and the death penalty for repeat offenders.
Several new sexual offenses were also introduced, including stalking and jail sentences for officials who failed to register rape complaints.
