India’s top police agency Wednesday took over investigations into the brutal rape and murder of young medic, a killing that has sparked outrage and fellow doctors to go on strike.
The 31-year-old woman’s brutalised body was found last week in a state-run hospital in West Bengal’s Kolkata, where she was a resident doctor.
A subsequent autopsy confirmed sexual assault and homicide.
In a petition to the court, the victim’s parents have said that they suspected their daughter was gang-raped, according to Indian media.
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Doctors in government hospitals across several states have halted elective services “indefinitely”, demanding speedy justice and better workplace security.
While police have detained a man who worked at the victim’s hospital, helping people navigate busy queues, officers have been accused of alleged mishandling of the case.
Kolkata’s High Court on Tuesday transferred the case to the elite Central Bureau of Investigation to “inspire public confidence”.
Sexual violence against women is a widespread problem in India – an average of nearly 90 rapes a day were reported in 2022 in the country of 1.4 billion people.
The gruesome nature of the attack have invoked comparisons with the horrific 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus.
The woman became a symbol of the socially conservative country’s failure to tackle sexual violence against women.
Her death sparked huge, and at times violent, demonstrations in Delhi and elsewhere.
Under pressure, the government introduced harsher penalties for rapists, and the death penalty for repeat offenders.
Several new sexual offences were also introduced, including stalking and jail sentences for officials who failed to register rape complaints.