Some Indian junior doctors remained off the job on Sunday as they demanded swift justice for a colleague who was raped and murdered, despite the end of a strike called by a big doctors’ association, while some other people held street protests.
Doctors across the country have held protests, candlelight marches and refused to see non-emergency patients in the past week after the killing of the 31-year-old postgraduate student of chest medicine in the early hours of August 9 in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata.
In solidarity with the doctors, thousands of people marched in the streets of Kolkata on Sunday evening chanting “we want justice”, as authorities in West Bengal state struggle to contain demonstrations against the horrific crime.
Women activists say the incident at the British colonial-era R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital has highlighted how women in India continue to suffer despite tougher laws following the gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012.
“My daughter is gone but millions of sons and daughters are now with me,” the father of the victim, who cannot be identified under Indian law, told reporters late on Saturday, referring to the protesting doctors. “This has given me a lot of strength and I feel we will gain something out of it.”
India introduced sweeping changes to the criminal justice system, including tougher sentences, after the 2012 attack, but campaigners say little has changed and not enough has been done to deter violence against women.
A police volunteer, designated to help police personnel and their families with hospital admissions when needed, has been arrested and charged with the crime.
His mother told Reuters she was in remorse but would extend whatever support her son needs.
“I should not have given birth to my son … it’s a huge mistake,” she said at her home.
The Indian Medical Association, whose 24-hour strike ended at 6 a.m. (0030 GMT) on Sunday, told Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a letter that, as 60% of India’s doctors are women, he needed to intervene to ensure hospital staff were protected by security protocols akin to those at airports.
The R.G. Kar hospital has been rocked by agitation and rallies for more than a week. Police banned the assembly of five or more people around the hospital for a week from Sunday, which was defied by the protesters late in the day before they dispersed.
The government has urged doctors to return to duty to treat rising cases of dengue and malaria while it sets up a committee to suggest measures to improve protection for healthcare professionals.
Most doctors had resumed their usual activities, IMA officials said.
“The doctors are back to their routine,” said Dr Madan Mohan Paliwal, the IMA head in the most populous state, Uttar Pradesh. “The next course of action will be decided if the government does not take any strict steps to protect doctors… and this time we could stop emergency services too.”
But the All India Residents and Junior Doctors’ Joint Action Forum said on Saturday it would continue a “nationwide cease-work” with a 72-hour deadline for authorities to conduct a thorough inquiry and make arrests.
In Modi’s home state of Gujarat, more than 6,000 trainee doctors in government hospitals continued to stay away from non-emergency medical services on Sunday for a third day, although private institutes resumed regular operations.
Dr Prabhas Ranjan Tripathy, additional medical superintendent of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in the eastern city of Bhubaneswar, said junior doctors and interns had not resumed duty.
“There is a lot of pressure on others because manpower is reduced,” he said.