Kolkata: Junior doctors, who have restarted their protest against the rape and murder of their trainee colleague in August, have been fasting for over 72 hours now. The Bengal government has so far been silent on the second chapter of protests.
These protests are notably happening while the Durga Puja festivities unfold in the city, with the Mamata Banerjee administration pushing for the festivities to take centre stage.
Ashfaqulla Naiya, a doctor who has been leading the protests told The Wire that close to 64 doctors’ associations had mailed the chief minister urging her to discuss “the layers of corruption, the removal of evidence, the culture of threats, the state government giving false information at the Supreme Court” with the protesting doctors.
“If the government continues to ignore us, the movement will only grow bigger,” he said.
A rally of supporters heads towards the junior doctors’ protest site in central Kolkata. Photo: Joydeep Sarkar
While six junior doctors have been fasting, a vast number of senior and junior doctors have been arriving at their protest site in central Kolkata to offer support. A day ago, on October 8, the protesters gave the call for a mass resignation against the state government’s sustained move to ignore these protests.
Responding to the call, in an extraordinary move, 50 senior doctors – including senior professors – at the R.G. Medical College handed their resignations by midday. The move grabbed eyeballs and has been widely shared on social media. The state government has summoned the principal of the College – the former principal Sandip Ghosh is in Central Bureau of Investigation custody – to ask about the move. Mamata Banerjee is also the health minister of Bengal.
The junior doctors’ protest site in central Kolkata. Photo: Joydeep Sarkar
Doctors of the city’s premium Kolkata Medical College have given the Mamata Banerjee government 24 hours time, threatening to resign if the government does not respond. Doctors of the North Bengal Medical College are also learnt to have had discussions on resigning en masse in a similar move.
The Kolkata protesters had also given a call for a rally from College Square in north Kolkata to Dharmatala in central Kolkata in the evening, but Kolkata Police did not give permission for it.
The junior doctors’ protest site in central Kolkata. A banner reads ‘doctors fasting, is the administration not ashamed?’. The doctors are protesting against the Mamata Banerjee government’s refusal to engage with them on a host of issues stemming from the R.G. Kar rape and murder. Photo: Joydeep Sarkar
Despite the lack of permission, doctors of Kolkata’s P.G. Hospital and Kolkata Medical College joined the Dharmatala protest.
At the protest site, junior doctors also questioned the CBI’s chargesheet on the crime, questioning the single name on it – that of civic volunteer Sanjoy Roy.
“We find this hard to believe. We are also going to question the CBI as part of our movement,” a protesting doctor said.
Translated from the Bengali original by Soumashree Sarkar.