Following the terrible murder and rape of a colleague, which has brought attention to the pervasive problem of violence against women, Indian physicians announced on Friday that they would step up nationwide protests and strikes.
Nationwide protests have been triggered by the discovery of the 31-year-old’s brutalized and bloodied body on August 9 at a state-run hospital in Kolkata, an eastern metropolis.
“We are intensifying our protests… to demand justice for our colleague,” Suvrankar Datta said Friday, from the government-run All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital in New Delhi.
In a show of protest, people in government hospitals in multiple states on Monday “indefinitely” stopped offering elective procedures.
Numerous medical unions from the public and private sectors have supported the walkout.
In protest of the killing, thousands of people marched through Kolkata’s streets overnight on Wednesday. At midnight, a candlelight gathering was held to mark the beginning of India’s independence day celebrations.
The Indian Medical Association has demanded a “nationwide withdrawal of services” that will stop all non-essential medical treatments at private hospitals for a full day beginning on Saturday.
According to Indian media, the dead doctor was discovered in the seminar hall of the teaching hospital, indicating that she had taken a little break there after working a lengthy shift.
According to Indian broadcaster NDTV, the victim’s parents claimed in a court appeal that they feared their daughter had been gang-raped, and an autopsy verified the sexual assault.
