Kolkata Rape Murder Case: Junior doctors stated on Thursday night in Kolkata that they would be ready to report for emergency services on Saturday when they were striking. They, however, did not stop their protest. During their sit-in as part of their peaceable protest demanding justice for the rape and murder of an intern from RG Kar Medical College and hospital on August 9, they made it clear that no one is reporting to the Out-Patient Departments OPD of any public hospital in the city.
Members of the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front declared that they shall lift their dharna from outside Swashthya Bhavan in Kolkata and proceed to hold a demonstration at the headquarters of the CBI.
“We have termed this an early victory since takeover of most of our demands was on course,” the doctors said.
The interns’ group vowed to escalate their action if within 7 days there would still be a culture of threats.
The doctors have been camping out for about ten days and more outside the Swasthya Bhavan and have indicated that they are going to interrogate the CBI regarding the time frame within which they will be able to complete the investigations into the rape and murder of RG Kar.
However, we are going to the CBI now regarding the timeline for an investigation into the case. Members of the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front said that they should dignify the call.
The doctors went on, “Let us wait for a week for the fulfillment of all the assurances given by the Bengal government, and if they are not fulfilled, we shall come back again for ‘cease work’ instatement.”
On the other hand, the physicians who were in protest going through the news release said that they had ‘gained some success with respect to their five demands for Justice for Abhaya, which led to our protest’ as their dharna drew to a close.
“We managed to successfully prevent the gruesome scheme, which was to keep the event under wraps and the unethical means to frustrate the investigation. At a meeting dated 16th, the other major portion of our second and third demands was met by the government as a result of the heat from our lashed campaign, which led to the removal of the CP of Kolkata police, DC North and DME DHS,” asked their statement.
The statement of physicians reads as under: “We will withdraw our protest in front of the Health Department tomorrow, September 20.” However, we are resolute in respect of our fourth and fifth demands.” While our strike on other topics continues, we will visit each medical college one again to talk about the SOP for vital services. We will also join the necessary services starting the day after tomorrow, or Saturday.
In order to contain adequately the protest that has persisted for more than a month owing to the event that occurred at the RG Kar hospital, a rather agitated junior physicians’ union was met by Mamata Banerjee earlier in the week and afterwards agreed to their demands that some administrators be removed.
When faced with the demand of the doctors to take action against poor administration, two of the officials of the health department were dismissed, and in place of Vineet Goyal, Manoj Kumar Verma was made the Commissioner of the Kolkata Police.
In fulfillment of the obligations he assumed during the sitting, she also dismissed Deputy Commissioner of Police North Division Abhishek Gupta, Medical Education Director (DME) Kaustav Nayak, and Health Services Director (DHS) Debasis Halder.
A badly battered medic was found dead on his casket in the hospital lecture room. Later, in a related incident, the Kolkata police arrested a member of the community on the matter.
On 13th August, the Calcutta High Court ordered that the contentions be handed over to the CBI, which began the inquiry the next day, August 14.
