At midnight, thousands of women began marching through the darkened streets of West Bengal, carrying burning torches and blowing conch shells.
The march, which took place in the early hours of Thursday, August 15, India’s Independence Day, was part of days of protests against the brutal rape and murder of a junior doctor inside a hospital in the state capital, Kolkata, last week.
The women marched shouting “Take back our night” – a reference to the fact that the 31-year-old doctor, whose name has not been released, was attacked on Friday night during a break from a long shift at the government-run RG Khar Hospital.
The call for women to speak out grew out of outrage expressed on social media and quickly spawned the largest protests the state has seen in a long time.
The anger in the streets was over the doctor’s horrific ordeal, but also the struggle women in India face every day to live freely. Organisers said they chose Independence Day to ask when women would win independence.
As the protesters passed through homes, gated communities and apartment blocks, many who had been inside, despite the rain, ran outside to join the crowds, chanting justice, safety, respect.
Anupama Chakraborty came out with her two granddaughters, aged 11 and 13. “This incident has shocked the nation. The girl who was assaulted was a doctor on duty. If the government cannot ensure safety of women in government-run institutions, what hope is there,” she told The Telegraph.
Thousands of doctors went on strike on Monday, halting most medical services and causing severe disruptions to patient services across India. They are demanding justice for victims and increased security at hospitals, including tighter controls over who enters hospitals and more CCTV cameras and guards.
The deceased doctor had been watching the Olympics with colleagues, having dinner, chatting with his parents, and then was resting in a seminar room.
Police investigations revealed that the 33-year-old man arrested for the crime had access to all parts of the hospital, although he appeared to be an informal tout who would speed up patients’ admissions in exchange for money.
The Trainee Doctors’ Federation, which had called the strike, called it off after meeting Union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda on Wednesday but many doctors continued with the strike.
Mistrust has grown over the police investigation since the hospital initially told the parents that their daughter had committed suicide.
“What this shows is that the hospital staff and police were trying to cover up the real culprits,” Nazrul Islam, a former inspector general of police in West Bengal, told NDTV news agency.
Protesters were also outraged that the hospital’s director, Dr Sandip Ghosh, had resigned after the incident, only to be reinstated 24 hours later as director of another hospital.
Responding to a petition seeking an out-of-state investigation into the case, the Kolkata High Court expressed concern about destruction of evidence and handed the case over to the federal crime-finding agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation.
The death of this young doctor has sparked public sympathy and highlighted the vulnerability of Indian women to violence, made all the more shocking by the fact that she was not walking alone in the dark late at night, but in her workplace, where there were lights and people everywhere.
An average of 86 rape cases were reported per day in India in 2022. Since the brutal gang-rape and death of a young woman on a New Delhi bus in 2012, Indians have grown weary of the all-too-familiar cycle of rape, outrage, promises of change, and a return to “normalcy.”
This time, neither Women and Child Development Minister Annapurna Devi nor National Commission for Women chairperson Rekha Sharma issued a statement.
Ranjana Kumari, director of the Centre for Social Research, said: “It is outrageous to see this silence, to see how he brutally murdered her and to see the total disregard for safety at the hospital. Nothing has changed since 2012. There wasn’t even a CCTV camera in the room where the incident took place.”
Information and support for people with issues of rape and sexual abuse is available from the following organizations: In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support in England and Wales on 0808 500 2222, in Scotland on 0808 801 0302 and in Northern Ireland on 0800 0246 991. In the US, Rain offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available on 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html.
