New Delhi — Public hospitals across India turned away all patients except emergency rooms on Monday, while hundreds of thousands of doctors continued to refuse to work as part of a nationwide strike that began on Saturday over the brutal rape and murder of a young female doctor.
Doctors have demanded safer workplaces and swift legal action following the rape and murder of the 31 year old physician in training on August 9 at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in the eastern city of Kolkata, sparking a fresh wave of national anger over violence against women.
“Our indefinite strike and sit-in policy will continue until our demands are met,” vowed Dr Aniket Mahata, a spokesperson for the striking junior doctors at the RG Kar facility.
The government has promised to set up a committee to suggest ways to improve the safety of doctors and has urged them to return to work, but medics have not been convinced by the promise of action. The strikes began in Kolkata and quickly spread to other cities and states last week, becoming a national action on Saturday, backed by the Indian Medical Association.
Supporters of the two biggest football clubs in the state of West Bengal, where Kolkata is located, abandoned their arch-rivals and took to the streets of the city on Sunday evening to demand justice for the victim and safety for doctors.
Doctors in the Indian capital Delhi and the state of Odisha have also announced they will continue their strike until their demands for immediate changes are met.
Thousands of people held protest marches across India over the weekend, including in the sprawling cities of Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad. Demonstrations were also held outside the Indian parliament in New Delhi.
The national outrage and protests are similar to those after the 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a moving bus in New Delhi. The brutal attack prompted India to introduce tougher laws against sexual violence, but authorities still recorded an average of 90 rapes a day in 2022, according to the most recent government data available.
The Kolkata doctor’s autopsy report showed a level of brutality comparable to the 2012 Delhi gang rape. Indian news outlets that claimed to have seen the report said it detailed multiple injuries the woman sustained before she died, with strangulation listed as the cause of death. The nature and extent of the injuries reported suggest the woman resisted and may have been tortured before she was killed.
Kolkata police arrested a volunteer member of the force on August 10 and charged him with rape and murder, but the victim’s parents have raised questions about the possibility of more people being involved. The case was transferred last week to India’s top criminal investigation agency, the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI).
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