NEW DELHI: Protesting junior doctors in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal returned to duty on Saturday to provide emergency services to flood victims, following a month-long strike over the killing of a female colleague in Kolkata.
The 31-year-old trainee doctor was raped and murdered on Aug. 9 at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in West Bengal’s capital, where she worked.
The crime triggered protests across India, especially in Kolkata, where thousands of young medics took to the streets to demand safer working conditions.
Their protests continued despite the Supreme Court ordering them to return to work last week, saying they would only do so if their demands for justice for the victim and better safety measures in hospitals were met. The doctors’ strike was lifted only at hospitals due to the current flooding.
“The strike is partially over. We thought that a large number of people were suffering due to the flood, so we thought that ... a humanitarian decision should be taken. We have partially joined the duty — the emergency duty, not the regular duties, because our demands have only been partially met,” Dr. Anustup Mukherjee, member of the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front, which represents some 7,000 physicians in the state, told Arab News on Saturday.
Heeding the doctors’ demands, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee sacked Kolkata’s police chief and two top health ministry officials on Tuesday. But demands for accountability for the murder and better security remain to be met.
“The demand for justice is still to be fulfilled, the demand for the eradication of the threat culture is yet to be fulfilled, even (when it comes to) the security and safety issues, infrastructural issues are only partially fulfilled,” Mukherjee said, adding that the state’s administration told them it had ordered CCTVs and panic buttons and would arrange separate restrooms and bathrooms for on-duty doctors.
“We have got confirmation from the State Secretariat that our infrastructural demands for safety and security will be fulfilled ... But we are waiting,” Mukherjee said.
Dr. Ashfaqullah Naya, also a member of the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front, told Arab News that the protest was not over.
“This partial withdrawal is also because (of the flooding). But the protests in medical colleges will continue. We are just doing essential services, not the regular services,” he said.
As the probe into the murder has been moved from Kolkata Police to India’s federal Central Bureau of Investigation, doctors were waiting for the perpetrators to be caught.
One man has been charged with the murder and was arrested last month, but following an autopsy, doctors assessing the report suggested the victim might have been subject to gang rape.
“The culprits should be caught,” Naya said. “Some of them are roaming free.”
Last week, the CBI arrested the former principal of the medical college where the murder took place and a local police officer on charges of mishandling and tampering with key evidence in the case, and misleading investigators.
