The father of the trainee doctor murdered during a rest break at a Kolkata hospital has spoken of his daughter’s love of medicine and the way her family had worked to support her vocation.
“We are a poor family and we raised her with a lot of hardship. She worked extremely hard to become a doctor. All she did was study, study, study,” he told the Guardian by telephone.
“All our dreams have been shattered in one night. We sent her to work and the hospital gave us her body. It’s all finished for us.
“My daughter isn’t coming back. I’m never going to hear her voice or laugh. All I can do now is concentrate on getting her justice,” he said.
The rape and murder of the doctor at RG Kar hospital in Kolkata on 9 August, and subsequent handling of the case by the authorities, has led to protests and strikes by doctors across India.
Her father, who cannot be named under an Indian law that protects the identity of the dead woman, said a career in medicine was all his only child had ever wanted. The 31-year-old had beaten the odds to qualify for one of approximately 107,000 places in India’s medical colleges, which more than a million aspiring doctors compete for every year.
She won a place at College of Medicine & JNM hospital in Kalyani in her home state of West Bengal. Her parents financed her dream with the precarious income her father earned as a tailor.
Remembering the day she confided in him she wanted to become a doctor, his voice broke. “She said: ‘Papa, it’s a good thing to become a doctor and help others. What do you think?’ I said: ‘OK, do it. We’ll help you.’ And look what happened,” he said.
Her ambition drove him to expand his tailoring business and the family’s finances improved to the point where, when his daughter fretted about safety on the hour-long bus ride between the hospital and their home in a crowded Kolkata suburb, he was able to borrow the money to buy her a car.
“At first, she told me to wait, she said we couldn’t manage the EMIs [monthly instalments] and she didn’t want to overburden us. But then she found the bus ride so tiring after a long shift that she agreed to the car,” said the father.
Although they remained in the same lower middle-class suburb where she grew up, and where everyone respected her as a local girl made good, her parents had recently renovated the house. The brass nameplate bore her name, not theirs, proudly prefixed by “Dr”.
The sense of disbelief in the neighbourhood has not faded since the news spread from house to house that “their” doctor’s bright day was done.
: – in the hospital where she worked, which she and her family assumed was safe – and her public service as a doctor working a 36-hour shift have added to the public outrage over the crime.
The father said: “Like all parents, we worried about her safety but only while she was travelling. The moment she reached the hospital, we relaxed. She was safe. It’s like when we used to drop her off at school – once she was inside the gate, you feel she is safe,” he said.
In a post on X, the head of the Indian Medical Association, Dr RV Asokan, expressed anguish at the murder, saying “we failed her in life but did not fail her in death” – a reference to the protests, outcry and doctors’ strikes that have rocked the country since her body was discovered.
Her colleagues and neighbours describe a dedicated young doctor who wanted to pay off her parents’ debts and give them a comfortable life after their sacrifices to help her become a doctor.
One of her former teachers, Arnab Biswas, said that unlike many young people who chose medicine for its earning potential, she was “old school”, treating it as a vocation.
Having witnessed Covid-19 patients gasping for breath, she selected respiratory medicine when it came to choosing a medical specialism.
Her parents are broken. “She was my only child. We worked hard to make her a doctor … I will never be happy again,” a neighbour said the mother told her.
Neighbours, who consulted her over every ailment and were proud of her achievements, recall her feeding stray animals and gardening when she had the time. They are yearning to help the family in some way.
“The girl has gone now,” said one neighbour. “But we’ll stand by her parents so they don’t feel alone.”