The outrage, it seems, has spread across the country, drawing people from all walks of life.
Mornings start early at the hospital. By 9 am, students and protesters begin to assemble near the shrine. The protesters include photographers, vloggers, YouTubers, everyone trying to make sense of the tragedy in their own way, some with more sincerity than others. Prashanta Kar is a struggling actor who has been a regular at the protest site. He claims he is satiated doing odd jobs for the protesting doctors. “I fill in with sloganeering at times when they are too tired, I want to be a part of this because I feel it’s something much bigger than me,” he says.
Jatin, a 21-year-old engineering student from Indore, travelled to Kolkata three days after hearing about the incident, a city he has not been to before. For two days, he stood silently at the protest site, holding placards and chanting slogans in Bengali, a language he doesn’t speak. He steadfastly avoided cameras, talking only when they were switched off. His message was simple: “We want justice for the girl.”
Maniruddin Ahmed, 42, travelled from Khardah, a northern suburb in West Bengal, with his pre-teen daughter to join the protest on Independence Day. “As a father, I couldn’t stay silent. I have to show my daughter that I tried to make this world a safer place for her,” Ahmed said, his voice heavy with emotion.
‘Who is there to protect us’
The August 9 incident has laid bare the longstanding security issues at RG Kar Hospital.
Dr Sourav Roy, a junior doctor at the hospital, voices the collective frustration of his colleagues. A day after the Supreme pulled up the West Bengal government over the rape and murder of the woman doctor and put in place a nine-member panel to recommend solutions to issues related to the safety and well-being of medical professionals, Roy, his voice hoarse from chanting slogans, says, “It has been 12 days since the incident happened, but apart from the initial arrest of one person, no other arrests have been made. While we welcome the statement of the CJI, it’s not a closure for us. We want justice for our colleague.”
Another junior doctor, who was on duty on the night of the incident and spoke on condition of anonymity, claims there have been instances when unauthorised individuals took photos of female doctors without consent.
“Security is the biggest issue here (RG Kar Hospital), especially when we are in the Emergency Room, because the ER is a place which is open to everyone. We take in patients as they come. There have been so many instances where we have had to face drunken mobs, drunken patients coming in, and there isn’t a machinery in place to check them. When we are working in the trauma room, we don’t even have time to focus on the fact that we are being harassed by some outsider. Because you are so focused on the patient,” she tells indianexpress.com.
“This happened recently too when a colleague tending to the patient, and a group of strangers just walked in and took pictures of her from all angles and without her consent, and only when a co-worker saw it, it was flagged and then it was reported to the police. This is just one of the many incidents that all of us face on a daily basis, and that is where, again, the question arises, who is there to protect us?” She alleges security issues have been flagged to authorities in the past too but no action was taken. The West Bengal government on Monday announced setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe into alleged financial irregularities at the RG Kar Hospital from January 2021.The period corresponds to the tenure of Dr Sandip Ghosh, who joined as the principal of the medical college in mid-2021.
A walk around the densely-populated campus proves as much. It doesn’t take more than 15-20 minutes to cover the entire campus, and one can’t differentiate where the hospital area ends and doctors’ quarters begin. There are signs reading, ‘Trespassers Not Allowed’, but they are pointedly ignored as is evident from settlements of patient’s families across the campus. “We had men undressing in front of the ladies hostel earlier this year, but thankfully the guards shooed them away,” says a woman doctor on condition of anonymity.
A close-knit community
Despite the incidents of harassment, the doctors at RG Kar remain resolute. Jigme Wangchuk, a junior doctor, holds a placard reading “Justice for Abhaya”— a sobriquet used by some media houses to refer to the victim. “They call her Abhaya, meaning fearless, but the truth is, most women in this country live in fear,” he says.
Jigme’s words resonate deeply in a nation still grappling with the implications of this tragedy. “No amount of security cameras or guards will bring justice unless all those who were involved in this heinous incident are punished. We have heard that the CCTV footage has been tampered with, if that is proved, the college authorities should be punished too.”
Another junior doctor, who dreamt of becoming a trauma surgeon, says she changed her career plans “after facing harassment” every day. “I wanted to specialise in trauma surgery because I loved the adrenaline rush. It’s important to state that not many women enter this field because it is considered to be a man’s domain. But after working here in this situation, after facing these small harassments every day, I chose to take up something lighter… we have been failed by authorities.”
The doctors further say that relentless demands of their work — long shifts and inadequate rest facilities — compound the challenges. “Anything can happen to us at any time. We’re overworked. 36-hour shifts are common. Sometimes, it can go up to 40 hours. It’s very exhausting when you keep working and there’s hardly any time for you to take a break to sleep. And there are very few on-call rooms where we can rest. Not all departments have on-call rooms, so we just sleep on the floor, or benches or empty patient beds when they are available.”
For these doctors, RG Kar Medical College is more than just a workplace; it’s a close-knit community.
“Our seniors, batchmates, have all been very welcoming. We are a close-knit bunch, because the campus isn’t that big, so we are constantly crammed together. It also means we have had our best moments in a very limited space. And another great thing about RG Kar is that it is known to give you a lot of clinical exposure. Every day, a humongous number of patients walk in through its doors. It was all very exciting,” says a doctor who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
As early dusk falls, the RG Kar campus fills with people from across the city. Candles are lit, hymns are sung, and human chains form in solidarity. This has been the ritual for the past two weeks, though some doctors don’t know how much longer they can carry on with the protests.
“We have patients coming to us and telling us that we are fighting the right fight. That they are with us. I hope this anger is not wasted,” says Shabnam Begum, a senior doctor at the hospital.
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