Indian doctors resume work but protests over medic’s rape, murder continue

India’s Supreme Court urges doctors to go back to work, assuring safety measures will be implemented within two weeks.

Some doctors in India have returned to work after an 11-day strike over the brutal rape and murder of a trainee medic at a government hospital in the eastern city of Kolkata this month.

But the protests continued in Kolkata on Thursday, where people gathered for another day of demonstrations against the latest fatal sexual assault on a woman in India, which took place on the premises of the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

Doctors across the country stopped work, apart from emergency services, demanding better safety measures in medical facilities and justice for the 31-year-old.

“We are resuming duties following the Supreme Court’s appeal and assurances and intervention in the RG Kar incident and safety for doctors,” the Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA) at New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) said.

“We commend the Court’s action and call for adherence to its directives. Patient care remains our top priority,” it said in a post on X.

The RDA at the Indira Gandhi Hospital in the national capital was also ready to end the strike “in a spirit of national interest and public service”, according to a statement.

At a hearing on Thursday, the Supreme Court urged doctors to return to work and said no “coercive action” should be taken against peaceful protesters, local media reported.

The court also ordered local and national authorities to put in place safety measures within two weeks.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), a federal agency, submitted a progress report on the investigation to the top court.

India has been outraged by the trainee’s rape and murder at her workplace, her bloodied and brutalised body found on August 9. An outraged citizenry joined doctors in protests across the country.

The Supreme Court set up a national task force of doctors this week to make recommendations on the safety of healthcare workers.

“Protecting safety of doctors and women doctors is a matter of national interest and principle of equality. The nation cannot await [for] another rape for it to take some steps,” Chief Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud said.

“If women cannot go to a place of work and be safe, then we are denying them the basic conditions of equality,” said Chandrachud, who headed a three-judge bench.

It additionally ordered a federal paramilitary force to provide security at the Kolkata hospital after female doctors said they did not feel safe after the crime and subsequent vandalisation of the facility by unidentified men.

A police volunteer, who was tasked with helping police personnel and their families with hospital admissions when needed, has been arrested and charged with the crime.

Medical professionals light candles as they pay tribute to the doctor who was raped and murdered, in Amritsar, in the state of Punjab, India [File: Narinder Nanu/AFP]

Thulasi K Raj, a Supreme Court lawyer, said there are limits to what the court can do and how its directives can be implemented nationwide.

“I think the sort of trust that people put on the Supreme Court to resolve a complicated issue in the country such as sexual assault on women is misguided,” Raj told Al Jazeera.

“We need to put our accountability, responsibility on the executive and the legislators, who are in charge of enforcing and making laws, and in charge of taking measures for sensitisation on what we can do to reduce and possibly eliminate the number of assaults that women face in the country,” she added.

Activists say the incident has shown yet again how women in India continue to face sexual violence despite tougher laws introduced after the 2012 gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a bus in New Delhi.

That attack had spurred politicians to order harsher penalties for such crimes and set up fast-track courts dedicated to rape cases. The government also introduced the death penalty for repeat offenders.

However, despite tougher legislation, sexual violence remains pervasive in India.

In 2022, the latest year for which records are available, police recorded 31,516 reports of rape – a 20 percent jump from 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies