Thousands demonstrate in India against rape and murder of doctor

Thousands of women took to the streets in several Indian cities on Wednesday evening with candles and signs reading “Take back the night” to protest the rape and murder of a 31-year-old doctor in Kolkata last week.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for strict punishment for crimes against women and spoke out against “the atrocities committed against our mothers, daughters and sisters”.

“There is outrage across the country about this,” he said. “I can feel that outrage.”

On Wednesday, India's top police agency took over the investigation into the case, which sparked a strike by doctors demanding safer working conditions.

The woman's body was discovered on Friday at a government hospital in Kolkata, West Bengal, where she had worked as a junior doctor. An autopsy confirmed that she had been sexually assaulted and killed.

Authorities arrested a volunteer police officer in connection with the crime.

On Monday, thousands of doctors in Calcutta and across West Bengal demonstrated against the murder, demanding justice for the victim and better security in hospitals.

The protest spread across the country on Tuesday, leading to disruptions in hospital operations in several Indian cities. More than 8,000 government doctors went on strike in all hospital departments except emergency departments.

According to Reuters, junior doctors in New Delhi protested outside a major government hospital, holding signs reading “Doctors are not punching bags.”

Doctors at public hospitals in several states have suspended their elective services indefinitely and are demanding swift justice and greater workplace safety.

Sexual violence against women is a serious problem in India. In 2022, nearly 90 rapes were reported every day in the country of 1.4 billion people.

This case has been compared to the gang rape and murder of a young woman on a bus in Delhi in 2012, which sparked significant public outcry and calls for reform.

In response to the 2012 incident, the government imposed harsher penalties for rape, including the death penalty for repeat offenders, and established new sexual offenses such as stalking.

Officials who failed to register rape reports also faced prison sentences.

Some information for this report was provided by Agence France-Presse and Reuters.