Thousands of women marched through a number of Indian cities overnight in protest after a trainee doctor was raped and murdered at a hospital in Kolkata.
The 31-year-old medic, who has not been named, was found murdered in a rest area at the R.G. Kar Medical College in Kolkata on August 9.
She had fallen asleep after a 36-hour shift and was attacked by her assailant, who sexually assaulted her and then stabbed her.
A volunteer worker at the hospital has been arrested on suspicion of murder.
‘Reclaim the Night’ Protest
Many of the placards read “reclaim the night”—a theme of the protest—with campaigners claiming women do not feel safe after dark in large parts of India.Bollywood actress Alia Bhatt, in a post on her Instagram page, which is followed by 85 million people, wrote, “This horrific incident has once again reminded us that women disproportionately bear the weight of ensuring their own safety.”
In a speech to mark the 78th anniversary of Indian independence, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “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, 73, has been prime minister since 2014 and he won another term earlier this year when his BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) won the general election.
Wednesday night’s marches were largely peaceful but in Kolkata, a mob of unidentified men entered the R.G. Kar Medical College and vandalized the emergency department.
The investigation of the doctor’s murder has now been taken over by India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Doctors Go on Strike in Protest
Junior doctors mounted strikes earlier this week at several government hospitals in India, and suspended all services, except emergency responses, as part of a protest.Banerjee was quoted in The Times of India appealing to doctors in Kolkata to go back to work: “I plead before you, if needed I am ready to touch your feet if that satisfies you, to join work. It’s been five days that you started your protest. No one has stopped you but three people have lost their lives, one of them a child and another a pregnant woman.”
Under Indian law rape victims and complainants cannot be named, even after death, which means the Kolkata doctor will never be identified.
Doctors in Indian hospitals have long complained of being overworked and underpaid, and have complained about the levels of violence they have to put up with.
Many medical graduates and doctors from India choose to move abroad for opportunities in safer and more affluent countries like Britain, Canada and the United States.
Figures from the National Crime Records Bureau, released last year, showed crimes against women in India rose 4 percent in 2022.
The doctor’s murder in Kolkata has echoes of another horrific case in Delhi in 2012, when a 23-year-old student was gang-raped on a bus in New Delhi, causing injuries which led to her death.
That incident led to huge protests across India against violence against women.
Four men—Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh—were sentenced to death after being convicted in 2013 and were executed, by hanging in March 2020.
