A facility manager of a contractor was arrested on Monday night after a 29-year-old working as a ward girl through the same contractor at the state-run Panskura Super Speciality Hospital in East Midnapore accused him of raping her in a store room of the hospital on Sunday.

The incident comes a little over 13 months after the grisly rape and murder of a junior doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Calcutta.

The Panskura hospital employee said that she had been molested several times in the past before what happened on Sunday. The incident has triggered protests by hospital employees, who have charged the accused, Zaheer Abbas Khan, with running a “threat syndicate” at the hospital, and the authorities with failing to respond to their complaints.

The accused, Zaheer Abbas Khan, being taken to the court in Tamluk on Tuesday.

On Monday, the victim filed a written complaint at the Panskura police station, stating that Khan had raped her at 2.30pm on Sunday.

“Zahir Abbas Khan has raped several female health workers in this hospital, day in and day out, threatening them with getting them fired if they told anyone,” the victim further alleged.

The police started investigating the incident after receiving the complaint. The accused was arrested by the Panskura police from Kolaghat in East Midnapore on Monday night. On Tuesday, he was produced in the court of the Tamluk chief judicial magistrate, who remanded him in police custody for six days.

Protests were staged before the hospital’s superintendent and assistant superintendent with demands for security. Residents of the area joined the protests, blocking the Ghatal-Panskura state highway.

Political parties attacked the Mamata Banerjee government, holding the chief minister — also the state’s health minister — directly responsible for such incidents on government hospital premises.

District police chief Soumyadip Bhattacharya said: “The accused has been arrested. The investigation into the complaint is underway.”

According to hospital sources, the contractor — through the West Bengal Medical Services Corporation — has been supplying staff such as security guards and assistants in various departments of the hospital for about one-and-a-half years.

District chief medical officer of health Bibhash Roy visited the hospital on Tuesday and spoke to the superintendent, the doctors, and other healthcare workers regarding the matter.

“There is a store room of the contractor’s company in the outdoor area of the hospital. In the initial investigation, we have come to know that the outdoor area was closed on Sunday, and this store room was the scene of the incident. The store room has been locked and the keys have been handed over to the police,” said Roy.

“The contractor has been summoned, and the police have been requested to increase surveillance at the hospital,” he added.

A five-member team of the Vishakha Committee is investigating the hospital, and a report has already been sent to the health department through Roy.

Under the direction of the Supreme Court, the setting up of the Vishakha Committee is mandatory, and the body is duty-bound to deal with complaints of sexual harassment at workplaces and educational institutions.

Regarding the complaints of healthcare workers that sufficient CCTV cameras were not installed in the hospital after the RG Kar incident, Roy said: “Although CCTV cameras were allocated to the district’s medical college after the RG Kar incident, they were not allocated to other hospitals in the district.”

“We have already installed some CCTV cameras with the help of the district administration; more will be installed if necessary,” he added.

Panskura’s BJP leader Sentu Senapati alleged that the accused was a Trinamool Congress worker, so whoever the contractor would appoint in the hospital, Khan was the ultimate authority.

Although the women were “tortured”, the hospital authorities kept their mouths shut, alleged Senapati.

“The health minister is responsible. The buck stops with her,” he said.

CPM district secretary Niranjan Sihi said: “There was no justice delivered in the RG Kar case, so the criminals did not get punished. The rape at the Panskura hospital proved once again that no state-run hospital is safe for its workers.”

Trinamool’s Tamluk unit vice-president Sheikh Samiruddin said: “This is the outcome of a sick mind. The accused youth is not from our party.”

“We strongly condemn such a heinous incident. We have demanded the strictest punishment for the accused,” he added.