India: Health workers to 'intensify' protests after colleague raped and murdered

Indian health workers have said Friday that they would step up demonstrations after the rape and murder of a doctor last week in a hospital in Calcutta (east), an affair which shocked the country and prompted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to call for tough sanctions on Thursday.

“We are intensifying our protests… to demand justice for our colleague,” said Suvrankar Datta, a clinician and researcher in radiology at the government-run All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital in New Delhi.

The body of the 31-year-old woman was found with multiple injuries on August 9 at the government-run hospital in Calcutta where she worked. The autopsy confirmed rape and homicide.

The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday transferred the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), a federal agency, in a bid to “instill public confidence.”

On Monday, doctors at government hospitals in several Indian states suspended non-emergency care for an “indefinite” period, demanding greater security at their workplaces.

“The strike will continue until all demands are officially met,” Dhruv Chauhan of the Indian Medical Association's junior doctors' network told the Press Trust of India on Thursday.

Police arrested a man who was helping people navigate hospital queues.

Thousands of people, mostly women, protested in Kolkata on Thursday morning to denounce the crime and demand “justice” for the victim.

Sexual violence against women is widespread in India, with an average of nearly 90 rapes reported every day in 2022 in the country of 1.4 billion people.

The The rape and murder of a young woman on a New Delhi bus in 2012 sparked massive, sometimes violent protests.

Under public pressure, the government introduced harsher sentences for rapists and even the death penalty for repeat offenders.

Several new sexual offences have also been introduced, including harassment, and prison sentences for government officials who fail to register rape complaints.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday called for “severe and swift punishment for egregious behaviour against women”.

Healthcare workers across the country are also calling for the implementation of the Central Protection Act, a bill that aimed at protecting health professionals from violence.

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