In response to the horrific rape and killing of a trainee doctor, Indian police used water cannon and tear gas to scatter hundreds of demonstrators who were marching through the eastern city of Kolkata on Tuesday. The demonstrators were demanding that a prominent state official quit.
Television footage showed protesters led by university students smashing through iron barricades erected along their march route to the West Bengal state headquarters. The police, who had earlier deemed the demonstration unlawful, responded with a baton charge.
Similar to the massive demonstrations that followed the gang rape of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi in 2012, the attack on the 31-year-old doctor on August 9 has incited outrage across the country. Protesters claim that even with stricter laws, high rates of sexual violence against women persist.
The federal police have taken over the investigation after a volunteer police officer was placed into custody for the crime.
Since the event at Kolkata’s state-run R.G. Kar Medical College, junior physicians have protested for justice for the victim and increased safety for women in hospitals, refusing to see non-emergency patients in several parts of the nation.
The Supreme Court of India has ordered doctors who are protesting to return to work and established a task force focused on hospital safety; nevertheless, some doctors, particularly those in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, have refused to move.
According to a senior officer, more than 5,000 police officers were stationed in Kolkata and the nearby city of Howrah on Tuesday as demonstrations spearheaded by a few university students began calling for the resignation of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Speaking on behalf of Banerjee’s ruling Trinamool Congress Party, Kunal Ghosh attributed the police raid to “lawlessness” incited by members and affiliates of the state’s major opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Senior state leader Suvendu Adhikari told reporters that Banerjee’s administration was attempting to repress the rape and murder occurrence, a claim the state government has disputed. The BJP has offered its support to the students who are protesting.
