Police arrested the accused involved in the brutal sexual assault and murder of a postgraduate trainee doctor at a State-run hospital.
Massive protests have erupted among junior doctors and medical professionals in medical colleges and hospitals across the State following the alleged rape and murder of a female doctor at the State-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata.
This follows the arrest of a civic volunteer named Sanjay Roy on Saturday morning in connection to the case. The accused was produced before a city court and was remanded to 10 days of police custody.
On Saturday, junior doctors, residents and paramedic staff organised protests in multiple medical colleges in the State, including RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, Medical College, Kolkata, Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital, Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital as well as government-run medical colleges outside the city like Burdwan Medical College and Hospital, Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital and others.
At RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, where the 31-year-old post-graduate trainee was allegedly raped and murdered on duty, the situation remained tense on Saturday. Hundreds of students, junior doctors, and residents shouted slogans and conducted sit-in demonstrations in the rain, demanding increased safety on the hospital premises and strict action against the accused. The campus also saw the heavy deployment of police forces and dissatisfaction among OPD patients who could not avail medical services owing to the protests.
The accused, reportedly an outsider frequenting the hospital premises, was arrested and later remanded to 14-day police custody.
“The resident doctors of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital demand strict action to address the flawed security agency of the hospital, as well as increased installation of CCTV cameras with 24×7 real-time monitoring,” Dr. Arif Naskar of the college’s Medicine department said at the protest on Saturday. “We also want the post-mortem report to be released immediately and a fast-track court to be formed for the punishment of the culprit.”
Dr. Naskar added that medical services in the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital will stay on halt until college authorities respond to their ten-point demands. Meanwhile, a one-day strike was called by protesting junior doctors and staff of other State-run hospitals like Medical College, Kolkata, and Calcutta National Medical College.
“We have been feeling extremely unsafe since yesterday. I stay in the college hostel, and my parents have been calling me up repeatedly out of anxiety. How can we do night duty if we are feeling so unsafe?” Amrita Dey, a third-year student of BSc nursing at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital told The Hindu. She added that not all CCTV cameras on campus are functional, and that should be resolved at the earliest.
Another female student of the medical college, who did not wish to be named, alleged that the campus lacks proper washrooms for female staff, proper changing rooms and adequate resting areas for on-call doctors. “We are forced to rest by keeping our heads down on benches or by sitting on chairs when we are on night duty. Today, the protest is not just against this incident but also against the lack of basic facilities which the authorities have ignored for so long,” she said.
The gathering swelled up in the afternoon, with hundreds of protesting medicos and doctors from other hospitals in the city joining the protests at RG Kar Medical College. They conducted protest marches from their respective hospitals with candles and banners, demanding justice for the victim and the removal of the principal of RG Kar Medical College, Dr. Sandip Ghosh.
“We will not calm down until the principal of RG Kar Medical College accepts responsibility for the death of our colleague and resigns,” Dr. Aniket Kar of Medical College, Kolkata, who led a massive rally of students to RG Kar Medical College and Hospital said on Saturday. “College authorities were complicit in trying to cover up the incident. That is why we demand the immediate resignation of the principal,” he added.
Meanwhile, a group of practising senior lady doctors marched from Shyambazar 5-point crossing to RG Kar Medical College with stethoscopes, banners and candles in solidarity with the practising students and to protest against the lack of safety against female medical staff.
“I have been practising medicine in government hospitals for almost three decades now and I have not witnessed a crime as heinous as this being committed against a lady doctor on duty. I feel so disturbed that I could not help myself from coming out and protesting today,” Prof. Dr. Ranu Roy Biswas told The Hindu. She expressed shock at how junior female doctors are having to experience the same struggles with safety and security that they did as juniors. “Nothing seems to have improved. How can we make our female staff work with us when we cannot ensure their safety? We feel embarrassed and insulted.”
