Doctors refuse to end protests

Kolkata: Thousands of Indian junior doctors refused to end their protests against the rape and murder of a colleague on Monday, paralysing hospital operations, nearly a week after they launched a nationwide campaign demanding safer workplaces and prompt criminal investigations.

Doctors across the country have held protests and refused to treat non-urgent patients after the 31-year-old medical practitioner was killed on August 9. Police said she was raped and murdered in a hospital in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta, where she was working as a junior doctor.

A police officer was arrested and charged with the crime. Women's rights activists say the incident highlights how women in India continue to suffer sexual violence despite stricter laws following the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi in 2012.

The government has called on doctors to return to work and is setting up a committee to propose measures to better protect medical staff.

“Our indefinite work stoppage and sit-in will continue until our demands are met,” said Dr Aniket Mahata, a spokesman for the protesting junior doctors at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, where the incident occurred.

In solidarity with the doctors, thousands of supporters of the two largest football clubs in the state of West Bengal marched through the streets of Calcutta on Sunday evening, shouting “We want justice”.

Groups representing junior doctors in the neighboring state of Odisha, the capital New Delhi and the western state of Gujarat also announced they would continue their protests.

Gita Gopinath, deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, told the Indian daily Business Standard that workplace safety was important to increase women's labor force participation in the country, which stood at 37 percent in fiscal year 2022-23.

“You cannot increase this (female participation) without ensuring workplace safety and women's safety on the way to work. That is absolutely critical,” Gopinath said in the interview published on Monday.