NEW DELHI – Hundreds of doctors protested near India's Health Ministry on Monday to demand stringent laws to protect health care workers from violence and to seek justice for their colleague who was raped and killed at a state-run hospital.
The protesting doctors, holding up placards like “Justice delayed is justice denied,” were stopped by police as they tried to set up free outpatient services outside the ministry in New Delhi.
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Doctors and medics across India have held protests, candlelight marches and temporarily refused care for non-emergency patients after the rape and killing of the 31-year-old trainee on Aug. 9 in the eastern city of Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal state.
The doctors say the assault highlights the vulnerability of health care workers in hospitals and medical campuses across India. They are demanding stronger laws, including making any attack on on-duty medics an offense without the possibility of bail, increase in security at hospitals and safe spaces for them to rest.
“If a lady is not safe at a workplace, at a hospital ... then I wonder which lady in this country is safe?" said Daisy Singh, a protesting doctor.
The government has asked the doctors to return to work and said it will set up a committee to look into their demands.
The rape and killing of the trainee doctor at Kolkata city's R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital has also focused rage on the chronic issue of violence against women.
A police volunteer working at the hospital has been arrested and charged with the crime, but the family of the victim alleges it was a gang rape and more people were involved. Federal investigators were handling the case.
Thousands of people, particularly women, have marched in the streets of Kolkata demanding justice for the doctor. They say women in India continue to face rising violence despite tough laws that were implemeted following the gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012.
That attack had inspired lawmakers to order harsher penalties for such crimes and set up fast-track courts dedicated to rape cases. The government also introduced the death penalty for repeat offenders.
Despite tougher legislation, sexual violence against women has remained a widespread problem in India. In 2022, police recorded 31,516 reports of rape — a 20% jump from 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.