Kolkata rape and murder: Protesting doctors refuse to call off strike

The junior doctors protesting against the rape and murder of their colleague in Kolkata said on Wednesday that they will continue to cease work as they received only “verbal assurances” from the West Bengal government on their remaining demands, The Indian Express reported.

The 31-year-old trainee doctor was raped and murdered at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata on August 9. For more than a month, the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front has been leading protests demanding the resignation of several senior officials and an end to the “threat culture” in West Bengal’s medical centres.

Following a meeting with the protesting doctors on Monday, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Abhishek Gupta, Director of Medical Education Debashish Halder and Director of Health Services Koustav Nayek would be removed from their posts.

However, on Tuesday, the doctors said that certain key points regarding their five-point demands were left unresolved and sought another meeting with the state government.

At the meeting on Wednesday, the junior doctors demanded the suspension of more officials, the resignation of the state health secretary and the state of security in hospitals, reported The Indian Express.

“While we appreciate the government’s verbal commitments, we are hopeful for a written directive that formally acknowledges our demands,” said Debashish Haldar, a leading member of the doctors’ delegation, after the meeting.

Until this was done, the doctors would continue their “current course of action”, he added.

Haldar also noted that including the verbal assurances in the official minutes of the meeting would also have been a “sign of good faith and commitment” from the state government.

“We could not do the video streaming of the meeting,” he said, according to The Indian Express. “Many of our friends are protesting day and night and are on the roads. They couldn’t be here. So for them, we wanted to include their verbal assurance in minutes of the meeting. However, it was not done.”

He said that the doctors understood that government directives take time. “But they should have allowed including their verbal assurance in the minutes of the meeting,” he said. “We lost all hope towards the end [of the meeting]. We will wait till directives are issued before deciding on our next course of action. For now, the cease work will continue.”

Chief Secretary Manoj Pant told the protesting doctors that the state government would adhere to the directions issued by the Supreme Court on Tuesday, The Indian Express reported.

The court, a day earlier, told the state government that women doctors could not be restricted from working night shifts or in shifts longer than 12 hours.

This came after the state government told the bench, led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, that it had notified such rules as part of its security measures to ensure the safety of medics at work.

Before Monday’s meeting, several attempts to hold talks between the protesting doctors and the state government failed. The doctors had initially rejected the government’s invitations that sought to restrict the number of representatives who could meet Banerjee.

They had also demanded that the meeting be recorded on video and a copy of the footage be given to them. The state government rejected the demand. Banerjee had said that footage of the meeting could be shared only if permitted by the Supreme Court.

However, on Monday, in an email sent to Pant, the doctors agreed to settle for the “minutes with full transcript of the meeting… [being] recorded and formulated by both the parties… and duly signed by all attendees and handed over at the end of the meeting”.

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