India’s Healthcare Workers Unite in Protest After Doctor’s Murder
In a rare display of unity, thousands of outraged Indian protesters, including arch-rival football fans and lawyers, took to the streets on Monday, demanding justice for a 31-year-old doctor who was brutally raped and murdered at a state-run hospital in Kolkata.
The doctor’s body was found in the teaching hospital’s seminar hall on August 9, sparking widespread medical strikes and protests across India. Doctors’ associations from government-run hospitals in many cities continued their strikes on Monday, cutting non-essential services.
The protesters, including fans from Kolkata’s Mohun Bagan and East Bengal soccer teams, have put aside their rivalries to call for justice for the doctor and her family. “We have forgotten our rivalries to make common cause in calling for justice for the doctor and her family,” said Bablu Mukherjee, a supporter of Mohun Bagan.
The discovery of the doctor’s body has also brought together ordinary Indians, with tens of thousands joining the protests, demanding action against the chronic issue of violence against women. “It’s not just a protest, but a call to humanity,” said Sristi Haldar, a 23-year-old student who joined the candlelit rally.
The protests have been led by doctors and other healthcare workers, who have been joined by hundreds of lawyers, mostly women, marching in legal black gowns. “No mercy to rapists,” read one banner.
India’s Supreme Court has taken up the case, overseeing the process in Kolkata’s High Court, with a hearing set for Tuesday. One man has been detained in connection with the case, and Indian media reported that five people had been arrested, accused of raping a child at a bus station in northern Uttarakhand state.
The gruesome nature of the attack has invoked comparisons with the horrific 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus. It has sparked widespread outrage in a country where sexual violence against women is endemic, with an average of nearly 90 rapes reported every day in 2022.
Doctors have also demanded the implementation of the Central Protection Act, a bill to protect healthcare workers from violence. The protests are expected to continue until justice is served, with the striking doctors offering to see patients for free outside India’s health ministry.
