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Doctors return to duty after strike over rape and murder of Kolkata medic

Special Junior doctors carry India’s national flag and hold placards during a protest to demand accountability over the rape and murder of a female medic, in Kolkata. (File/AFP)
Junior doctors carry India’s national flag and hold placards during a protest to demand accountability over the rape and murder of a female medic, in Kolkata. (File/AFP)
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Updated 21 September 2024
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Doctors return to duty after strike over rape and murder of Kolkata medic

Junior doctors carry India’s national flag and hold placards during a protest to demand accountability over the rape of medic.
  • West Bengal government dismisses city’s police chief and top state health ministry officials
  • Investigators arrested ex-college principal, police officer on charges of tampering with evidence
Updated 21 September 2024
Sanjay Kumar
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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.

Topics: Kolkata India rape

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Myanmar quake struck mosques as minority Muslims gathered for Ramadan prayers

Myanmar quake struck mosques as minority Muslims gathered for Ramadan prayers
Updated 57 min 11 sec ago
Reuters
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Myanmar quake struck mosques as minority Muslims gathered for Ramadan prayers

Myanmar quake struck mosques as minority Muslims gathered for Ramadan prayers
  • Htet Min Oo, 25, said two uncles and his grandmother were also trapped under piles of concrete
  • More than 50 mosques sustained damage, according to the shadow National Unity Government
Updated 57 min 11 sec ago
Reuters

MYANMAR: When Friday’s powerful earthquake struck central Myanmar, Htet Min Oo was performing ritual ablutions before Ramadan prayers at a mosque next to his house in Mandalay.
His home collapsed along with part of the mosque, trapping half his body with the rubble of a wall that buried two of his aunts. Residents raced to pull the aunts out, he said, but only one survived.
Htet Min Oo, 25, said two uncles and his grandmother were also trapped under piles of concrete. With no heavy equipment available, he tried desperately to clear the rubble with his hands but could not shift it.
“I don’t know if they are still alive under the debris. After so long, I don’t think there’s any hope,” he said on Friday.
“There’s too much rubble and no rescue teams have come for us,” he added, his voice shaking as he broke into tears. Hundreds of Muslims are feared among the dead in Myanmar after the shallow quake struck as worshippers gathered at mosques for Friday prayers in the holy month.
More than 50 mosques sustained damage, according to the shadow National Unity Government.


’I HAD TO LEAVE HIM BEHIND’
A 39-year-old resident of the Mandalay region described harrowing scenes as he tried to save a man trapped under the debris of a collapsed mosque in Sule Kone village, but had to flee because of strong aftershocks.
“I had to leave him behind ... I went in a second time to try to save him,” he said, declining to be identified.
“I retrieved four people with my own hands. But unfortunately, three were already dead and one died in my arms.”
He said 10 people had been killed there, and that they were among 23 who died at three mosques that were destroyed in the village. Government restrictions had prevented them being upgraded, he said.
Muslims are a minority in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar and have been marginalized by successive governments, while ultranationalist groups and extremist monks have in recent years incited violence.
Myanmar authorities have for decades made it difficult for Muslims to obtain permission to repair or build new mosques, according to 2017 report by the US State Department, which said historic mosques have deteriorated because routine maintenance was denied.
Buddhist buildings were also badly hit by the quake, with 670 monasteries and 290 pagodas damaged, according to the military government. It did not mention any mosques in its damage report.
Reuters could not reach the mosques or verify the accounts of the collapses.
One man, Julian Kyle, appealed on social media for heavy equipment to lift concrete pillars after the quake destroyed another Mandalay mosque.
“Underneath the rubble, my family members and others were crushed and lost their lives,” he posted. “We desperately want to recover their bodies.”
A resident from the town of Taungnoo about 370 km (230 miles) away said he was praying when one side of the Kandaw mosque caved in on two rows of men seated before him.
“I saw so many people carried out from the mosque, some of them died right before my eyes,” he said. “It was truly heartbreaking.”

Topics: Ramadan 2025 Myanmar earthquake Muslims

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Serbian students protest at pro-government media ‘propaganda’

Serbian students protest at pro-government media ‘propaganda’
Updated 29 March 2025
AFP
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Serbian students protest at pro-government media ‘propaganda’

Serbian students protest at pro-government media ‘propaganda’
  • “Informer has been spreading numerous lies and falsehoods for a long time,” said Bogdan Vucic, a student at the Belgrade Faculty of Political Science
  • The nationwide wave of student-led protests against state corruption has raised pressure on the nationalist government of President Aleksandar Vucic
Updated 29 March 2025
AFP

BELGRADE: Serbian demonstrators gathered for a rally outside a pro-government television channel on Saturday, branding it a “propaganda tool,” in the latest of nearly five months of mass protests.
Holding banners “Manipulator, not a journalist,” waving Serbian and university flags, and blowing whistles, student organizers called on citizens to join the demo in front of the offices of Informer, a television station with a tabloid newspaper of the same name.
“Informer has been spreading numerous lies and falsehoods for a long time,” said Bogdan Vucic, a student at the Belgrade Faculty of Political Science.
The nationwide wave of student-led protests against state corruption has raised pressure on the nationalist government of President Aleksandar Vucic.
It was sparked by the deadly collapse of a roof at a newly-renovated train station in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second city, in November.
Since the beginning of the protests, pro-government media have portrayed student demonstrators as “foreign agents,” alleging they are funded by the opposition and plotting a “coup d’etat.”
Bogdan Vucic said one of his student peers had become a target of both the Informer TV station and the tabloid.
“They have published information about his family that goes against the most basic standards of decency, not to mention journalistic ethics,” he said.
According to the Press Council — the regulatory body that monitors newspapers — Informer violated the Serbian journalists’ code of ethics 647 times in 2024.
Many newspapers and channels in Serbia are owned by people with close ties to the government and regularly echo its talking points.
Tabloid Kurir said students “terrorize Belgrade.” Informer alleged they are paid by US aid agency USAID and billionaire George Soros — a regular target of right-wing conspiracy theories.
Another pro-government broadcaster, Pink TV, branded the protest movement an uprising supported by Kosovo, which broke away from Serbia in 2008.
“Such narratives contribute to making students enemies of the state — it creates a violent atmosphere and divisions,” said Bogdan Vucic.
“That’s why we want to put an end to what we could call propaganda — very dirty propaganda.”
Informer is among the most widely-read newspapers in Serbia, with 57,028 copies printed daily. It is cheaper than its competitors at just 40 Serbian dinars ($0.36) a copy.
The group claims its TV channel is the “most watched among cable networks” in the country.
Like other pro-government outlets, Informer benefits from public funding — through advertising purchased by state operator Telekom Serbia — and exclusive interviews with the country’s leaders.
Meanwhile, “the situation for independent media in Serbia is increasingly dire,” to the point where they risk disappearing, said Slobodan Georgiev, news director of television channel NOVA S.
According to the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, the majority of Serbian media derive their income from advertising and opaque public subsidies — both sources largely controlled by the ruling elite and dependent on the media groups’ political alignment.
“Advertisers close to the government, as well as state-owned companies, completely bypass independent media,” said Dragoljub Petrovic, editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Danas.
Critical media and journalists are subjected to various forms of pressure, including vindictive lawsuits, public insults, and being labelled traitors.
“Independent journalists face relentless pressure, including direct attacks from the head of state and leading figures of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party,” Georgiev said.
In early March, the president called a journalist who had covered the protests “an imbecile colluding with the demonstrators,” prompting dozens of reporters from southern Serbia to refuse to cover the president’s activities in protest.
On Wednesday, a television campaign aired on national television labelling journalists from two opposition-aligned networks — TV N1 and Georgiev’s TV Nova — “enemies of the state.”
“Unless there are real political changes in the coming years, it is likely that no media outlet will remain safe from the influence or control of President Aleksandar Vucic’s cabinet,” Georgiev told AFP.
Earlier this month students blocked the headquarters of Serbian national television (RTS) in Belgrade for a day, after one of its journalists referred to them as a “mob.”
To reach people in smaller towns across Serbia — where residents often rely on state-backed media that echo Vucic’s ruling party line — protesters have spent weeks criss-crossing the country on foot.
Contacted by AFP for comment, Informer’s editor-in-chief did not respond.

Topics: Serbia President Aleksandar Vucic Protests

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Shiite protesters clash with Nigerian military, police in Abuja

Shiite protesters clash with Nigerian military, police in Abuja
Updated 29 March 2025
Reuters
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Shiite protesters clash with Nigerian military, police in Abuja

Shiite protesters clash with Nigerian military, police in Abuja
  • Critics say Nigerian security forces have increasingly resorted to using force
  • Police in a statement on Saturday accused the protesters of “a violent assault” on security personnel
Updated 29 March 2025
Reuters

ABUJA: Nigerian police said on Saturday they had come under intense gunfire a day earlier in a neighborhood of the capital, Abuja, during clashes between security forces and Shiite Muslim protesters that led to several reported deaths.
Nigeria has a history of deadly clashes between security forces and members of the banned Shiite Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), which advocates for the peaceful establishment of an Islamic state in Africa’s most populous nation.
On Friday, dozens of the group’s members marched in solidarity with Palestine, but violence broke out when they clashed with soldiers and police.
Critics say Nigerian security forces have increasingly resorted to using force, including live ammunition, to quell protests, and that this could radicalize groups like IMN.
Police in a statement on Saturday accused the protesters of “a violent assault” on security personnel armed with firearms and other lethal weapons in Abuja’s Wuse 2 neighborhood.
“Police and security personnel encountered intense gunfire from the attackers, resulting in the serious injury of three security operatives,” said Josephine Adeh, police spokesperson for Abuja.
One member of the security forces had died and 19 suspects had been arrested, he said.
Videos circulating on social media platform X showed protesters waving a Palestinian flag and throwing stones at an army vehicle, followed by the sound of gunfire.
Sidi Munir Sokoto, a senior IMN member blamed the military for the violence, saying the protest was peaceful. He put the death toll at five.
“This was the military. The (military) leadership must explain why this happened,” Sokoto said.
An army spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Isa Sanusi, head of Amnesty International Nigeria, called for an impartial investigation.
“The army used live ammunition on the protesters. It appears they approach IMN protesters always with the intent to kill,” Sanusi told Reuters, also putting the death toll at five.

Topics: Nigeria Abuja Shi'ite Protesters

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India sends aid flights to quake-hit Myanmar

India sends aid flights to quake-hit Myanmar
Updated 29 March 2025
AFP
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India sends aid flights to quake-hit Myanmar

India sends aid flights to quake-hit Myanmar
  • Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing issued an exceptionally rare appeal for international aid
  • Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said a C-130 military transport plane had been dispatched carrying hygiene kits, blankets, food parcels and other essentials
Updated 29 March 2025
AFP

NEW DELHI: Indian aid flights began landing in Myanmar on Saturday, New Delhi’s foreign ministry said, a day after a powerful 7.7-magnitude caused widespread damage in its civil war-ravaged neighbor.
Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing issued an exceptionally rare appeal for international aid, indicating the severity of a calamity that has killed at least 694 people and injured 1,670 others.
Previous military regimes in the country have shunned foreign assistance even after major natural disasters.
Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said a C-130 military transport plane had been dispatched carrying hygiene kits, blankets, food parcels and other essentials.
“A search and rescue team and medical team is also accompanying this flight,” he added. “We will continue to monitor the developments and more aid will follow.”
Jaishankar’s ministry later shared photographs of the flight being unloaded after it landed in the commercial capital Yangon.
Two more Indian air force aircraft were being sent on Saturday carrying “80 search and rescue specialists” and a canine squad alongside more relief material, ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said.
A further two aircraft carrying a field hospital and medical personnel took off from Agra military base on Saturday for Naypyidaw, an Indian army official said during the ministry’s briefing.
Two Indian navy ships carrying more relief assistance material and personnel had already set sail from Port Blair for Yangon, an Indian navy official added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he had spoken with Min Aung Hlaing of Myanmar to give his “deep condolences at the loss of lives” in the earthquake.
“As a close friend and neighbor, India stands in solidarity with the people of Myanmar in this difficult hour,” he wrote in a social media post.
Friday’s quake struck destroyed buildings, downed bridges, and buckled roads across swathes of Myanmar, with severe damage reported in the second-biggest city, Mandalay.

Topics: Myanmar earthquake India

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UN says funding cuts threaten health of 13 mn displaced

UN says funding cuts threaten health of 13 mn displaced
Updated 29 March 2025
AFP
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UN says funding cuts threaten health of 13 mn displaced

UN says funding cuts threaten health of 13 mn displaced
  • Humanitarian organizations worldwide have been reeling
  • “Without adequate resources, an estimated 12.8 million displaced people, including 6.3 million children, could be left without life-saving health interventions,” said Maina
Updated 29 March 2025
AFP

GENEVA: Funding cuts are threatening the health of nearly 13 million displaced people, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR warned Friday, with the financial uncertainty already having an impact.
Humanitarian organizations worldwide have been reeling since US President Donald Trump returned to office in January, pushing an anti-refugee and anti-migrant agenda and immediately freezing most US foreign aid funding.
The United States has traditionally been UNHCR’s top donor, making up more than 40 percent of total contributions received.
“Without adequate resources, an estimated 12.8 million displaced people, including 6.3 million children, could be left without life-saving health interventions in 2025,” said UNHCR’s public health chief Allen Maina.
“The current humanitarian funding crisis, exacerbated by declining health spending in hosting countries, is affecting the scope and quality of public health and nutrition programs for refugees and host communities, disrupting access to essential services and increasing the risk of disease outbreaks, malnutrition, untreated chronic conditions and mental health issues.”
Citing examples of cutbacks, Maina said around a million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh were facing a severe health crisis with funding freezes threatening access to medical services.
In Burundi, the suspension of nutrition programs in several camps means thousands of refugee children under five may not receive adequate treatment for malnutrition, he added.
And in the Democratic Republic of Congo, UNHCR’s 2025 health budget has been cut by 87 percent compared to 2024.
In the DRC, “the health consequences of funding cuts are expected to be devastating, putting over 520,000 refugees at heightened risk of infectious diseases and death,” said Maina.
And in Egypt, all UNHCR’s medical treatment for refugees has been suspended, except emergency life-saving procedures.
The estimate of 12.8 million displaced people potentially being left without health support was based on a survey by UNHCR’s health team of all the global operations where the agency has health programs.
UNHCR spokesman William Spindler said other traditional top donors were also reducing their funding.

Topics: UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) US aid cuts US President Donald Trump UN Allen Maina

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