KOLKATA: The brutal rape and murder of an on-duty trainee doctor last week continued to reverberate on India’s Indep­endence Day, as hundreds of thousands of women and medical professionals marched in cities across the country to demand justice for the victim, and an end to the wider problem of violence against women.

The 31-year-old trainee was raped and murdered inside the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital last week. The incident has highlighted the vulnerability of medics left without proper protections and facilities, her colleagues and friends said on Thursday.

The doctor had retired to sleep on a piece of carpet in a seminar room after a marathon 36-hour shift, given the lack of any dorms or resting rooms for doctors in the premises, her colleagues told Reuters.

She was found dead last Friday. Police said she had been raped and murdered and a police volunteer was subsequently arrested in connection with the crime.

Mob ransacks hospital where on-duty trainee doctor was brutally raped and murdered

As news of her murder spread, doctors took to the streets alongside women’s groups and Bollywood stars, demanding enhanced safety measures for doctors on duty.

In protests called “Reclaim the Night”, women marched across several Indian cities from midnight on Wednesday, on the eve of the country’s 78th Independence Day, to protest against the lack of safety for women in India, especially at night.

“We have come here to demand justice because even I have a daughter. I am scared to send her anywhere...I am scared to send my daughter to study,” said Rinky Ghosh, who took part in a protest in Kolkata.

“So I am here today because something ... must be done, this injustice must stop.”

“We want justice,” read one sign at the rally. “Hang the rapist, save the women,” read another.

“This horrific incident has once again reminded us that women disproportionately bear the weight of ensuring their own safety,” Bollywood actor Alia Bhatt said in a post on her Instagram page, which has more than 85 million followers.

Hospital ransacked

On Wednesday night, ahead of a rally by medical professionals, a mob descended on the R.G. Kar Hospital and ransacked the place.

Doctors from the hospital and the victim’s colleagues accused the mob of deliberately trying to vandalise the crime scene to spoil any evidence that may remain. But Kolkata police claimed that the scene of the crime had remained undisturbed.

Jawed Naqvi adds from New Delhi: Indian PM Narendra Modi obliquely referred to the Kolkata incident in his Independence Day address on Thursday. But like much of his speech, he waffled about what needed to be done to make women safe in India’s cities, towns and villages.

He said the media focused on the crime, but it didn’t give the same space to the punishment meted out to the criminals. This confounded listeners, who included his ministers and Rahul Gandhi, who was curiously given a seat in the fifth row, behind the Olympic squad.

The question on the alternative media was: what was the prime minister trying to say, and what had stopped him from speaking out about similarly horrific outrages openly committed on women elsewhere, including those that were filmed in the troubled state of Manipur, ruled by a BJP government. Mr Modi has avoided visiting Manipur and was forced to make cursory observations when the opposition pressed a discussion in parliament.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2024