New Delhi — Thousands of angry students and other protesters marched on the streets of the eastern Indian city of Kolkata in the state of West Bengal on Tuesday, demanding justice for a Doctor who was brutally raped and killed At the beginning of the month in a city hospital.
Police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse protesters who were heading to the state secretariat building to demand the resignation of Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal state, whom they accused of mishandling the case.
Indian television channels broadcast videos showing protesters climbing over the barricades at Howrah Bridge while police stopped them with water cannons.
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On August 9, the battered body of a 31-year-old doctor was found with multiple injuries in a lecture hall at Kolkata’s government-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. The doctor had gone to the lecture hall to rest during her night shift when she was attacked. An autopsy confirmed sexual assault and numerous injuries sustained before she died, suggesting that she resisted and may have been tortured before she was murdered.
Kolkata police arrested a police volunteer on August 10 and charged him with rape and murder, but the brutality of the case sparked nationwide outrage, with medical professionals across the country demanding safer workplaces and citizens demanding safety for women in a country with a shameful history of rape.
Doctors in public hospitals across India refused to work last week and turned away all but emergency patients as part of a National strike for rape and murder.
Kolkata police had turned the city into a fortress ahead of the protests planned for Tuesday, cordoning off all roads leading to the state secretariat and deploying 6,000 troops in full riot gear. Police said they had not authorised the protest march and the Trinamool Congress party, which rules in West Bengal state, claimed it was an attempt by opposition parties to create unrest in the city.
Clashes broke out between police and protesters on Tuesday morning when some members of the crowd managed to climb over the barricades, but the protesters were stopped before they could reach the Secretariat of State.
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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the opposition party in West Bengal, claimed that several students were injured in clashes with police on Tuesday and called for a new 12-hour general strike in the state on Wednesday in protest against the response.
India’s Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI), which is investigating the Kolkata rape and murder case, administered a lie detector test to prime suspect Sanjay Roy last week, the results of which were not yet released on Tuesday. Many in the country hope the results will shed new light on whether other people may have been involved in the attack, as the victim’s father has suggested.
India reported an average of nearly 90 rapes per day in 2022, according to the latest available data from the National Crime Records Bureau. Experts say the actual number could be much higher, as many rapes go unreported due to the prevailing stigma against sexual violence and lack of trust in police investigations. Conviction rates remain low, and many cases get stuck for years in India’s overburdened criminal justice system.
