India’s Kolkata In response to the horrific rape and murder 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 minister quit.
Television video showed protesters led by university students smashing through iron barriers 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.
Like the massive demonstrations that followed the 2012 gang rape of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi on a moving bus, the attack on the 31-year-old doctor on August 9 sparked 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 examine non-emergency patients in several areas of the nation.
The Supreme Court of India has ordered physicians 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 not bowed.
According to a senior officer, more than 5,000 police personnel were stationed in Kolkata and the nearby city of Howrah on Tuesday, coinciding with the start of protests spearheaded by university students 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 major opposition party in the state, the Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Senior state lawmaker Suvendu Adhikari informed reporters that Banerjee’s administration was attempting to repress the rape and murder occurrence, a claim the state government has refuted. The BJP has offered its support to the protesting students.
