At ground zero, a month later, RG Kar victim’s colleagues renew vow for justice
Times of India | 10 September 2024
Kolkata: On Aug 9, she never did see the sunrise. She had been barbarically silenced and put to sleep forever before daybreak. As the dawn emerged on Monday exactly a month later, renewed vows for justice for the 31-year-old PGT doctor who had died that night resonated through the R G Kar Medical College campus.
Snuffing out her life in the early hours of Aug 9, the perpetrator, one or more, had walked down the corridor of the chest department and sneaked out of the building.On Monday morning, her colleagues sat through the night, on a symbolic vigil to observe the passage of a month since the fateful night that had changed their lives forever.
“Abhaya, we don’t know where you are, but wherever you might be, do know that we are not rest till justice is delivered,” the deceased doctor’s colleagues vowed around 3 am on Monday, around the same time cops believe the PGT doctor would have been in a bitter struggle to resist the brutality that was inflicted on her.
Earlier, as the clock struck the midnight hour, many joined the dharna mancha erected less than 20 meters from the emergency building that also houses the seminar hall where she was found dead around 9.30 am on Aug 9. The hall is on the third floor.
Junior doctors at R G Kar kept vigil the whole night. “We are awake and we will be awake for many nights for you till there is justice,” the doctors said as they moved towards the gate of the emergency building and lay flowers and lit diyas.
“On that fateful night, she was having dinner around this time without knowing what was in store,” a PGT woman said around 3 am.
The otherwise busy emergency building gate wore a forlorn look at the dead of night. The collapsible gate at the entrance to the building is now drawn with private security guards in attendance. The telltale signs of the havoc wrecked by vandals at the building on Aug 14 night are still visible.
Slogans for justice rang out once again a little after 4 am, the time civic volunteer Sanjay Roy, the prime suspect and the only one arrested in the case, is suspected to have emerged from the emergency building after committing the crime.
“We were not on vigil that night. But the security guards and Kolkata Police were. None even noticed or tried to ask Roy what he was doing in the emergency building at that hour?” said another PGT.
A little after 5 am, the hospital campus started bustling with OPD patients trooping in and patient families staying on the campus waking up. This particular morning, the campus was even busier as OPD as well as admitted patient count was higher.
“That day, I arrived in the nursing room a little before 10 am when I heard the news. I wish that night and the morning never happened,” said a nurse.
By around 10 am that day, news had spread like wildfire on the campus. Rattled by the gruesome crime, junior doctors, sceptical of the administration and police, had started congregating for a long-haul of cease-work. On Monday, they assembled again around the same time before the Supreme Court hearing to hear from the apex court together, believing that they would see a flicker of hope for justice.