Thousands of women have taken to the streets of India to call for measures to tackle sexual violence, after a trainee doctor was savagely raped and murdered at a state-run hospital in Calcutta.
Smaller protests were held other Indian cities like Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune.
The largest event, described as a ‘Reclaim The Night’ march, saw thousands of protesters gathering at the city’s busy Shyambazar five-point crossing at the start of the country’s Independence Day celebrations on Thursday night.
The event’s main organiser, 29-year-old social science researcher Rimjhim Sinha, said she hoped the protest marked the start of structural change in the country, which has long been plagued by gender-based violence.
The horrific crime that sparked the nationwide protest saw a 31-year-old female trainee doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital get raped and killed while she was on duty, resting in a seminar hall that was meant to be secure.
Officials, including principal of the medical college Dr Sandip Ghosh, tried to dismiss the death of the young woman, who has not yet been named, as a suicide.
Ghosh, who has since resigned from his prestigious post, said: ‘It was irresponsible of the girl to go to the seminar hall alone at night.’
A volunteer hospital worker associated with the Calcutta police named locally as Sanjay Roy has since been arrested in connection with the sick attack.
The murder and rape case has since been taken over by the country’s Central Bureau of Investigation, amid claims that the local force would not investigate it fairly.
Sinha said: ‘The brutality of this case is enraging. It’s not just another rape case where survivors can speak for themselves — this time, we lost a life.
‘The aggressiveness of these crimes is escalating, and it’s clear that women are increasingly becoming victims of these criminal activities.’
Despite the protest in Calcutta starting off peacefully, local media reported that a group of men broke through a police barricade outside the hospital the murder took place in, ransacking an emergency ward.
‘We were preparing to take out a rally, when out of nowhere dozens of men barged in and started assaulting whoever they could see,’ a resident doctor, who did not wish to be named, told the Independent.
‘We ran inside the hospital to save ourselves. They were out for blood.’
The doctor added that the mob broke into a women’s hostel on the campus, ransacking the place by overturning beds and destroying important medical equipment.
Kolkata Police commissioner Vineet Kumar Goyal blamed the mob attack on a ‘motivated media campaign’ that painted the ‘Kolkata Police in a very poor light’.
‘Unfortunately this incident would not have happened if this kind of malicious campaign was not being run by the media,’ he claimed.
The country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, addressed the shocking incident in his Independence Day address, calling for strict punishments for crimes against women.
‘As a society, we have to think about the atrocities being committed against our mothers, daughters and sisters. There is outrage against this in the country. I can feel this outrage,’ he said.