Thousands of Indian junior doctors on Monday refused to end protests over the rape and murder of a fellow medic, disrupting hospital services nearly a week since they launched a nation-wide action demanding safer workplace and swift criminal action.
Doctors across the country have held protests and declined to see non-emergency patients following the Aug. 9 killing of the 31-year-old medic, who police say was raped and murdered at a hospital in the eastern city of Kolkata where she was a trainee.
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A police volunteer has been arrested and charged with the crime. Women activists say the incident has highlighted how women in India continue to suffer from sexual violence despite tougher laws brought in after the 2012 gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi.
The government has urged doctors to return to duty while it sets up a committee to suggest measures to improve protection for healthcare professionals.
“Our indefinite cease-work and sit-in will continue till our demands are met,” said Dr. Aniket Mahata, a spokesperson for protesting junior doctors at the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, where the incident happened.
In solidarity with the doctors, thousands of supporters of West Bengal state’s two biggest soccer clubs marched on the streets of Kolkata on Sunday evening with chants of “We want justice”.
Groups representing junior doctors in neighbouring Odisha state, the capital New Delhi, and in the western state of Gujarat have also said their protests will continue.
Earlier, 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.
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Most doctors resumed their usual activities, IMA officials said, although Sunday is generally a holiday for non-emergency cases.
“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.
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.
“The demonstrations are there today too,” he told Reuters. “There is a lot of pressure on others because manpower is reduced.”
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 and deployed police in riot gear.
Blocking meetings, demonstrations and processions was justified to prevent “breach of peace, disturbances of the public tranquillity”, Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal said in an order.
Reuters reporters saw no doctors at their usual protest site around the gates of the hospital on Sunday, as it rained in the area.