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The death and apparent rape of a trainee doctor has reignited anger over the violence they oppose and sparked national protests from his colleagues.
By Hari Kumar and Sameer Yasir
Report from New Delhi
After a long day of painting last Thursday, a young doctor fell asleep in a seminar room at the Kolkata hospital where she was painting. The next morning, her colleagues discovered her dead, with symptoms of rape and excessive physical brutality on her body.
The murder, at the Kar Medical College and Hospital in R. G. , sparked protests against misogyny and violence against women and prompted thousands of doctors to leave India’s major public hospitals to call for a safer working environment.
Attacks on doctors in hospitals are common in India. Last month, doctors in New Delhi went on strike after an assault on a hospital by dozens of people, many of them relatives of a woman who died during surgery after giving birth.
In the days since the murder of the young doctor, a 31-year-old trainee whose call will be published under Indian law, intense anger has turned to national outrage. On Wednesday night, thousands of women protested in the streets of Kolkata, West Bengal’s largest city.
Doctors’ outrage has also continued to grow, with many public hospitals postponing all emergency care while doctors protest for greater coverage against such violence.
After protests by doctors, the director of the Medical College R. G. Kar resigned from his position, but a few hours later he was reassigned to another hospital through the state government. On Tuesday, a Calcutta High Court asked him to take leave of absence.
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