Protests by doctors have intensified across India after a mob armed with sticks, iron rods and bricks ransacked a government hospital in Kolkata, where a 31-year-old trainee female medic was raped and murdered last week.
In violence lasting nearly an hour, hundreds of people stormed the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital about 12.30am on Thursday, assaulted doctors protesting against the murder and wrecked several floors of the premises, including wards and critical care units, as well as sensitive medical equipment.
Eyewitnesses said police deployed at the hospital fled as the mob arrived in trucks and ringed the hospital, triggering allegations from opposition leaders that West Bengal state chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s ruling Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) was “backing” the attackers.
In a post on X, local legislator Suvendu Adhikari of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party said “TMC goons” were provided “safe passage” to the hospital by the police, who either ran away or looked the other way.
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He said the motive of the attackers was to destroy evidence ofthe crime.
Other opposition leaders accused Mr Banerjee of attempting to shield some senior hospital staff from being indicted in the case which, in turn, prompted the Times of India to editorialise that “the system is so broken that in the debris and detritus only dirty politics can flourish”.
On Tuesday the state high court had handed overthe case to the federal Central Bureau of Investigation, citing “suspicious lapses and lack of substantial progress” by the Kolkata police five days after the murder, for which the police had arrested Sanjay Roy, a hospital volunteer with a history of necrophilia and violence.
With Mr Roy’s arrest, the Kolkata police had reportedly sought to close the case, despite overwhelming forensic evidence that the victim had been gang raped before being murdered.
Kolkata police chief Vineet Goal had also declined to confirm whether a background check had been conducted on Mr Roy before he was employed by Kar Hospital, where he had unrestricted access to all departments. At the time of his employment Mr Roy was part of the Kolkata police welfare cell.
Kolkata police had also not questioned the hospital principal, Dr Sandip Ghosh, who had initially dismissed the trainee doctor’s death as suicide and failed to inform the police. He had also blamed the victim for being “irresponsible” in retiring to a secluded hospital seminar room to sleep after a 36-hour shift. It was while there that she was raped and murdered.
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After pressure from protesting doctors forced the police into registering a case of rape and murder, Dr Ghosh resigned from his post, but within hours was appointed principal of the city’s prestigious National Medical College by Mr Banerjee, the chief minister.
The Indian Medical Association), the country’s largest doctors’ union, has called for a 24-hour nationwide strike in all government and private hospitals from Saturday morning.
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