The 31-year-old trainee doctor was raped and murdered in early August inside the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in West Bengal’s capital, Kolkata, where she worked.
A police volunteer also working at the hospital has been charged with the murder and arrested, but the case has since triggered daily demonstrations by medics calling for greater protection and workplace safety.
On Monday, the Supreme Court, which took up the matter in the wake of nationwide outrage over the incident, ordered the protesting doctors to return to work by 5 p.m. the next day and the state’s authorities to ensure the safety and security of doctors in hospitals.
The West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front, which represents about 7,000 physicians in the state, said it would follow the court’s order only if their safety demands were met by the state.
“The Supreme Court has said that the state can take action after 5 p.m., if they want to. At the same time, the Supreme Court has also asked the state to increase the security measures which has not been done at all,” Dr. Anustup Pal, the association’s member, told Arab News, as protesters gathered in front of the state’s health department to demand the resignation of its key leadership.
“We will continue till the demand is met,” Pal said. “We are unhappy at the representation done by the state at the Supreme Court.”
The protest is supported by the West Bengal chapter of the Indian Medical Association — the country’s top physicians’ body — which issued a statement after the court’s order, saying that no steps were being taken to deliver justice after the brutal murder and that the protest “will not die down.”
Dr. Sourav Datta, member of the association’s central committee, told Arab News that “almost no demand” from the protesting doctors had been fulfilled so far.
“Whatever decision they will take, the IMA will unconditionally give support to them,” he said. “The IMA will be with them.”
The father of the doctor who was raped and murdered in India’s Kolkata city said this week that police rushed the family into cremating her even though they wanted to keep her body for some time.
Officers from Kolkata police did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
The Aug. 9 attack at the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital had triggered nationwide protests as people demanded justice for the trainee doctor, who was killed in a classroom where she was resting during a gruelling 36-hour shift.
A police volunteer has been arrested for the crime and is in judicial custody.
Protesters are also demanding better security at government hospitals that they say lack basic amenities like resting rooms for doctors, closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, and security personnel.
“We wanted to keep the body of our daughter but extraordinary pressure was mounted on us and the body was cremated,” the woman’s father said as he joined doctors protesting at the college on Wednesday night.
He also alleged that a senior police officer had taken him aside and offered him money when his daughter’s body was brought home after an autopsy and before cremation.
“I gave him a piece of my mind and refused to take any money,” he said, without specifying why the money was offered.
The officer accused of making the offer did not respond to calls and messages seeking comment. The victim cannot be named under local laws.
West Bengal Women and Child Development Minister Shashi Panja said on Thursday that the government would not conduct a “postmortem” of the parents’ comments.
“We respect what the family is saying, they have lost their daughter,” she said at a media briefing where she also urged the federal police, who took over the probe last month, to conclude the investigation quickly and “reveal the truth.”
Reuters reported earlier this week that the West Bengal government had, in 2019, promised to take measures to ensure better security at hospitals in the state, but failed to implement these on the ground.
The federal police has also arrested the former principal of R.G. Kar Medical College, his close aide, and two vendors of hospital supplies for alleged graft.
The incident has once again put the spotlight on the lack of safety for women in India, who activists say continue to suffer sexual violence despite tougher laws being introduced after the 2012 gang-rape and murder of a woman in a moving bus in Delhi.
