Indian doctors end strike after rape and murder of colleague

By Subrata Nag Choudhury and Jatindra Dash

KOLKATA (Reuters) – Assistant doctors at many Indian hospitals stayed away from work on Sunday despite the end of a 24-hour strike called by the country's largest doctors' association, demanding swift justice for a colleague who was raped and murdered.

Since the 31-year-old pulmonary medicine student was killed in the early hours of August 9 in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta, doctors across the country have held protest rallies and candlelight marches over the past week and refused to treat non-urgent patients.

Women's rights activists say the incident at the British-era RG Kar Medical College and Hospital highlighted how women in India continue to suffer despite stricter laws following the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012.

“My daughter is dead, but millions of sons and daughters are with me now,” the victim's father, whose identity cannot be revealed under Indian law, told reporters late Saturday, referring to the protesting doctors. “This has given me a lot of strength and I believe we will gain something from this.”

India introduced sweeping changes to its criminal justice system, including tougher penalties, after the 2012 attack, but activists say little has changed and not enough has been done to prevent violence against women.

The Indian Medical Association, whose strike ended at 6 a.m. (0030 GMT) on Sunday, told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that 60 percent of India's doctors are women and that he therefore needed to intervene to ensure hospital staff were protected by security protocols similar to those at airports.

“All healthcare workers have the right to a peaceful atmosphere and safety at work,” it said in a letter to Modi.

“COULD STOP EMERGENCY SERVICES”

The government has asked doctors to return to work to treat rising cases of dengue and malaria and has set up a committee to propose measures to improve the protection of medical staff.

Most doctors have resumed normal work, IMA officials said, although Sunday is generally a holiday for non-urgent cases.

“Doctors are back to their routine,” said Dr Madan Mohan Paliwal, the head of the IMA in the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh. “The next course of action will be decided if the government does not take strict steps to protect doctors… and this time we may also stop emergency services.”

But the All India Residents and Junior Doctors' Joint Action Forum said on Saturday it would continue a “nationwide stoppage” and give authorities 72 hours to conduct thorough investigations and make arrests.

Dr. Prabhas Ranjan Tripathy, deputy chief medical officer of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in the eastern Indian city of Bhubaneswar, said junior doctors and interns had not yet resumed duty.

“The demonstrations are taking place again today,” he told Reuters. “The pressure on others is great because there are fewer personnel available.”

RG Kar Hospital has been rocked by unrest and demonstrations for more than a week. Police banned gatherings of five or more people for protests around the hospital for a week starting Sunday and deployed police in riot gear.

The blocking of assemblies, demonstrations and processions is justified to prevent “breach of the peace and disturbance of public tranquility,” Calcutta Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal said in an order.

Reuters reporters did not see any doctors at their usual protest site around the hospital gates on Sunday as it was raining in the area.

(Reporting by Subrata Nag Choudhury and Jatindra Dash in Kolkata; additional reporting by Saurabh Sharma in Lucknow, Sunil Kataria in Kolkata and Tora Agarwala in Guwahati; Writing by Krishna N. Das; Editing by William Mallard)