Activists and doctors across India plan to march on Wednesday night to demand justice for a doctor, who was raped and murdered while working at a hospital in the eastern city of Kolkata.
Protests titled “Reclaim the Night” are expected in West Bengal, Delhi, Karnataka, Odisha, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, among other states, according to a Kolkata-based organizer of the protests.
This comes after two days of nationwide protests by doctors following the incident at RG Kar Medical College in the capital of West Bengal. “The demonstrations and unrest on the hospital campus will continue,” one of the protesting doctors, identified as Dr. Mridul, told Al Jazeera.
Services at some medical centers have been halted indefinitely and marches and vigils have shed light on issues of sexual violence as well as the safety of doctors in the world’s most populous country.
What happened to the doctor in Calcutta?
The dead body of a 31-year-old trainee doctor with multiple injuries was found on August 9 at a government teaching hospital in Kolkata.
The victim’s parents were initially informed “by hospital authorities that their daughter had committed suicide”, lawyer and women’s rights activist Vrinda Grover told Al Jazeera. But an autopsy confirmed that the victim was raped and killed.
Grover has appeared for victims of sexual violence cases in India in the past, including Bilkis Bano, a Muslim woman who was gang raped during the 2002 Gujarat riots, and Soni Sori, a tribal activist based in the state of Chhattisgarh.
Thousands of doctors marched in Kolkata on Monday, demanding better safety measures and justice for the victim.
On Tuesday, the Calcutta High Court transferred the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA) has called for a nationwide suspension of elective services in hospitals from Monday. Elective services are medical treatments that can be delayed or are not considered medically necessary.
On Tuesday, FORDA announced on its X account that it would call off the strike after Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda accepted the protest demands.
One of these demands was the solidification of the Central Protection Law, which was intended to be a central law to protect medical professionals from violence, which was proposed in the lower house of parliament in 2022 but has not yet been enacted.
FORDA said the ministry would begin work on the Bill within 15 days of the press release and that a written statement from the ministry was expected to be released soon.
Press release on the cancellation of the strike.
In our struggle over the sad incident in RG Kar, the demands raised by us were fully met by the @OfficeofJPNadda with concrete measures implemented and not just verbal guarantees.
Ratification of the Central Health Protection Act… pic.twitter.com/OXdSZgM1Jc
– FORDA INDIA (@FordaIndia) August 13, 2024
Why do some Indian doctors continue to protest?
However, other doctors’ federations and hospitals have said they will not back down from the strike until a concrete solution is found, including a central law to curb attacks on doctors.
Those who continued the strike included the Federation of All India Medical Associations (FAIMA), the Delhi-based All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and the Indira Gandhi Hospital, local media reported.
Ragunandan Dixit, general secretary of the AIIMS Resident Doctors’ Association, said the indefinite strike will continue until their demands are met, including a written assurance of implementation of the Central Protection Act.
Medical professionals in India want a central law that makes violence against doctors a punishable and non-bailable crime, in the hope that this will deter such violent crimes against doctors in the future.
Those who continue to protest are also calling for the resignation of the school director, who has been transferred. “We demand his dismissal, not just his transfer,” Dr. Abdul Waqim Khan, a protesting doctor, told news agency ANI. “We also demand the death penalty for the criminal,” he added.
“Calling the strike now would mean that female resident doctors may never receive justice,” Dr Dhruv Chauhan, a member of the National Council of the Indian Medical Association’s Junior Doctors’ Network, told local news agency Press Trust of India (PTI).
Which states in India have seen protests by doctors?
While protests began in West Bengal’s Kolkata on Monday, they spread across the country on Tuesday.
The capital New Delhi, union territory Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow and city Prayagraj, Bihar capital Patna and the southern state of Goa also saw protests by doctors.
Who is the suspect in the Kolkata rape case?
Local media reported that police arrested suspect Sanjoy Roy, a civic volunteer who frequently visited the hospital. He has unrestricted access to the infirmary and the police found compelling evidence against him.
The victim’s parents told the court they suspect it was a case of gang rape, local media reported.
Why is sexual violence increasing in India?
Sexual violence is rampant in India, where an average of 90 rapes were reported every day in 2021.
Laws against sexual violence became stricter following a rape case in 2012, when a 22-year-old physiotherapy intern was brutally raped and murdered on a bus in Delhi. Four men were hanged for the gang rape, which triggered protests across the country.
But despite new laws in place, “the graph of sexual violence in India continues to rise unabated,” Grover said.
She added that in her experience, in most workplaces, little attention is paid to diligent and strict enforcement of laws.
“It is unfortunate that the government and institutions respond only after the woman has already suffered sexual assault and often succumbed to death in the incident,” she added, saying no preventive measures are taken.
In many rape cases in India, the perpetrators have not been held accountable. In 2002, Bano was raped by 11 men, who were sentenced to life in prison. In 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government authorized the release of the men, who were greeted with applause and garlands upon their release.
However, their remission was annulled and the Supreme Court sent the rapists back to prison following public protests.
Grover believes the death penalty will not deter rapists until India addresses the deep-rooted problem of sexual violence. “For any change, India as a society will have to confront and challenge the patriarchy, discrimination and inequality that are rooted in our homes, families, cultural practices, social norms and religious traditions.”
What makes this case particularly prominent is that it happened in Calcutta, NPR freelance contributor Sandip Roy told Al Jazeera. “In fact, Calcutta has long prided itself on being very low in violence against women and relatively safe for women.”
A report by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) said that Kolkata had the lowest number of rape cases in 2021 among 19 metropolitan cities, with 11 cases in the entire year. In comparison, New Delhi was reported having recorded 1,226 cases that year.
Prime Minister Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has called for the resignation of the government in West Bengal, where Kolkata is located, led by Mamata Banerjee of the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC). Banerjee’s party is part of the opposition alliance.
Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition in parliament, also called for justice for the victim.
“The attempt to save the accused instead of bringing justice to the victim raises serious questions in the hospital and local administration,” he posted on X on Wednesday.
Roy spoke about the politicization of the case as an opposition party rules West Bengal. “The local government opposition will try to make this an issue of women’s safety in the state,” he said.
Have doctors in India protested before?
Roy explained to Al Jazeera that this case is an overlap of two types of violence, violence against a woman, as well as violence against “an overworked medical professional”.
Doctors in India do not have sufficient security in the workplace and attacks on doctors have sparked protests in India before.
In 2019, two junior doctors were physically attacked at Kolkata’s Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital (NRSMCH) by a mob after a 75-year-old patient passed away at the hospital.
These attacks triggered protests by doctors in Kolkata, and senior doctors in West Bengal offered to resign their posts to express solidarity with the junior doctors who were attacked.
More than 75% of Indian doctors have faced some form of violence, according to a survey conducted by the Indian Medical Association in 2015.
What happens next?
The case will now be handled by the CBI, which sent a team to the hospital premises to inspect the crime scene on Wednesday morning, local media reported.
According to Indian law, investigation into a case of rape or gang rape must be completed within two months from the date of filing of the First Information Report (police report), according to Grover, the lawyer.
West Bengal’s highest court, which transferred the case from the local police to the CBI on Tuesday, directed the central investigating agency to submit periodic reports on the progress of the probe.
The FIR was filed on August 9, which means the investigation is expected to be completed by October 9.
The women of Bengal will make history with a night protest at several important locations across the state at 11:55 pm on 14 Aug 24, a night that will mark our 78th year as an independent country.
The ‘Women, Reclaim the Night: The Night is Ours’ campaign aims to seek… pic.twitter.com/Si9fd6YGNb
– purpleready (@epicnephrin_e) August 13, 2024
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
