Indian doctors launched a nationwide strike on Saturday, protesting the brutal rape and murder of a 31-year-old colleague in Kolkata.
The strike, backed by multiple medical unions, aims to pressure the government to address the chronic issue of violence against women and healthcare workers.
Dr. R.V. Asokan, chief of the Indian Medical Association said, “We ask for the understanding and support of the nation in this struggle for justice for its doctors and daughters.”
The IMA described the killing as “barbaric” and demanded the implementation of the Central Protection Act to safeguard healthcare workers from violence.
Thousands of doctors and ordinary Indians have joined protests across the country, holding candle-lit vigils and rallies. “Hands that heal shouldn’t bleed,” read one sign, while another proclaimed, “Enough is enough.”
In Kolkata, thousands held a candle-lit vigil into the early hours of Saturday morning.
“Hands that heal shouldn’t bleed,” one handwritten sign held by a protester in the eastern city read.
“Enough is enough,” another read, at a rally by doctors in the capital New Delhi.
The murdered doctor was found in the teaching hospital’s seminar hall, suggesting she had gone there for a rest during a 36-hour shift.
An autopsy confirmed sexual assault, and in a petition to the court, the victim’s parents said they suspected their daughter was gang-raped.
– ‘Struggle for justice’ –
Those in government hospitals across several states on Monday halted elective services “indefinitely”, with multiple medical unions in both government and private systems backing the strikes.
On Saturday morning, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) escalated protests with a 24-hour “nationwide withdrawal of services”, and the suspension of all non-essential procedures.
“We ask for the understanding and support of the nation in this struggle for justice for its doctors and daughters,” IMA chief R.V. Asokan said, in a statement ahead of the strike.
The IMA called the killing “barbaric”.
“The 36-hour duty shift that the victim was in and the lack of safe spaces to rest… warrant a thorough overhaul of the working and living conditions of the resident doctors,” IMA said in a statement.
Doctors are demanding the implementation of the Central Protection Act, a bill to protect healthcare workers from violence.
Members of the wider public have also marched in several cities this week, including at a candlelight midnight rally in Kolkata that coincided with the start of India’s Independence Day celebrations on Thursday.
Sexual violence against women is a widespread problem in India — an average of nearly 90 rapes a day were reported in 2022 in the country of 1.4 billion people.
For many, the gruesome nature of the hospital attack has invoked comparisons with the horrific 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus.
That woman became a symbol of the socially conservative country’s failure to tackle sexual violence against women.
Her death sparked huge, and at times violent, demonstrations in Delhi and elsewhere.
The murder has sparked outrage and comparisons with the 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman in Delhi, which led to widespread protests and calls for action against sexual violence.
“We demand justice for our colleague and an end to violence against women and healthcare workers,” said a striking doctor in New Delhi.
