Thousands march in streets of Kolkata as authorities struggle to contain demonstrations calling for justice.
Some Indian junior doctors have remained off the job as they demanded swift justice for a colleague who was raped and murdered in a hospital, despite the end of a strike called by a large doctors’ association, as street protests continued.
Doctors across the country have held protests and candlelight marches and refused to see nonemergency patients in the past week after the killing of the 31-year-old postgraduate medical student in the early hours of August 9 in the eastern city of Kolkata.
In solidarity with the doctors, thousands of people marched in the streets of Kolkata on Sunday evening chanting “we want justice”, as authorities in West Bengal state struggle to contain demonstrations against the horrific crime.
Female activists say the incident at the British colonial-era RG Kar Medical College and Hospital has highlighted how women in India continue to suffer despite tougher laws following the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012.
India introduced sweeping changes to the criminal justice system, including tougher sentences, after that attack, but campaigners say little has changed and not enough has been done to deter violence against women.
A police volunteer, designated to help police personnel and their families with hospital admissions when needed, has been arrested and charged with the crime.
The Indian Medical Association, whose 24-hour strike ended at 6am (00:30 GMT) on Sunday, told Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a letter that, as 60 percent of India’s doctors are women, he needed to intervene to ensure hospital staff were protected by security protocols akin to those at airports.
The RG Kar Hospital has been rocked by agitation and rallies for more than a week. Police banned the assembly of five or more people around the hospital for a week from Sunday, which was defied by the protesters late in the day before they dispersed.
The All India Residents and Junior Doctors’ Joint Action Forum said on Saturday it would continue a “nationwide cease-work” with a 72-hour deadline for authorities to conduct a thorough inquiry and make arrests.
In Modi’s home state of Gujarat, more than 6,000 trainee doctors in government hospitals continued to stay away from nonemergency medical services on Sunday for a third day, although private institutes resumed regular operations.