The gruesome rape and murder of a doctor in Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical college and the subsequent vandalism of its premises raise serious questions over the rule of law in West Bengal under the Mamata Banerjee-led government. It is just as well that the Supreme Court has taken suo motu cognisance and will be hearing the case on August 20.

The immediate issue that has outraged the entire country is the sheer brutality to which the doctor was subjected and the callousness with which the hospital administration subsequently dealt with it. The central figure here is former college principal Sandip Ghosh who initially attempted to dismiss the brutal rape and murder under his watch as a suicide (this is akin to custody crime, under institutional watch) and then took to victim shaming by reportedly asserting that “it was irresponsible of the girl to go to the seminar hall alone at night”. The prime suspect arrested for having assaulted her, Sanjay Roy, seemed to have free access to the hospital as a civic volunteer and was known among the doctors as a local power broker. The obvious political patronage extended to Sandip Ghosh, who was immediately awarded with the plum position of the principal of Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital after his resignation from RG Kar Medical College, does not portray the State government in good light. Trinamool Congress’ attempts to blame the Opposition for having organised an attack on the hospital and the protesting doctors on the night of August 14, are unconvincing. The Chief Minister cannot duck the blame here, particularly as she holds both Home and Health portfolios.

The incident has sparked widespread protests. Protesting doctors have raised questions not just about the nefarious manner in which this particular medical college was being run (with allegations of an organ, sex and drugs racket), but also about the glaring flaws in healthcare systems that expose both doctors and patients to mortal danger. In the case of RG Kar Medical College, the ongoing CBI probe would unravel whether the junior doctor was a victim of a security lapse that exposed her to a heinous assault, or a victim of a macabre racket which she was threatening to expose.

The doctors’ agitation also gives rise to larger questions on the abysmal working conditions, overall. Women healthcare professionals are vulnerable to violence given the poor infrastructure and security systems in medical facilities. They sleep in seminar rooms, unoccupied OPD rooms and inpatient beds in the wards because there are not enough doctors’ duty rooms, even when they are working double shifts for 48 hours. Toilets are not gender segregated. The specific case involving corruption and political linkages of the accused in the RG Kar Medical college needs to be extensively probed and the guilty punished. The structural issues highlighted by the doctors’ struggle need to be addressed if women’s safety is to be ensured in medical institutions.

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