Hundreds took to the streets responding to a call by the parents of the RG Kar victim on her birthday on Sunday.
The parents of the doctor who was raped and killed at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9 joined the rally a little after it started from College Street at 3.30pm and walked till Shyambazar.
“She (the victim) had four months left to complete her MD. She wanted to study DM. Her marriage was scheduled for November (2024). Had she been alive, this would have been a time of joy for us,” the victim’s mother said.
“We take an oath today that we will not step back till we get justice.” The rape and murder triggered protests by junior doctors across the state that led to a ceasework at government medical colleges and a hunger strike.
Based on the central agency’s investigation, a Sealdah court convicted Sanjay Roy, the lone accused named in the chargesheet, and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Roy was a civic volunteer with Kolkata Police. The victim’s parents are unhappy with the verdict. They suspect more people were involved in the crime and they are yet to be identified.
The parents repeated on Sunday that the CBI had failed in its task. “The CBI has not yet been able to find out the place of the murder,” the doctor’s mother said.
Her father said: “We are unhappy with the CBI probe, which is why we have approached Calcutta High Court. Such is the state of affairs in our democracy that we have to take to the streets for justice.”
Around a hundred people — doctors and others — started walking from College Street at 3.30pm. Near Hatibagan, some of the popular faces of the junior doctors’ protests, including Debashis Halder from Medical College Kolkata and Asfakulla Naiya from RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, joined the rally.
The protesters walked through Bidhan Sarani, crossed the Shyambazar five-point crossing and reached the gates of RG Kar.
The rallyists wanted to enter the medical college but were stopped by the police. Officers were heard telling the protesters at the head of the rally that allowing so many people inside would lead to chaos.
“City police and Central Industrial Security Force personnel said they could not allow such a large rally to enter the hospital,” said a senior doctor who joined the protest march.
CISF was deployed on the hospital campus following an order of the Supreme Court, which took suo motu cognisance of the rape and murder and has since been monitoring the probe.
Initially, the marchers refused to relent and stood on the road outside the hospital, disrupting traffic for nearly 20 minutes.
After talks between the two sides, a delegation of six protesters was allowed to go in. They garlanded the bust representing the victim, which was installed during the junior doctors’ protest over the rape and murder.
“How could we allow a rally to enter a hospital? What if it created a law and order problem? A few people did go inside and the matter did not escalate,” said an officer of the north division of Kolkata Police.