Doctors across India are poised to halt nonessential medical services on Saturday in a nationwide 24-hour strike to protest the brutal rape and murder of a female medical trainee at a hospital in Kolkata. The body of the 31-year-old was discovered in a hospital seminar room where she had gone to rest after a lengthy shift. A hospital volunteer has since been arrested for the crime. Earlier today, medical workers launched solidarity protests in New Delhi.
Dr. Margaret: “A fellow colleague was brutally murdered, so we want justice for her, as well as the vandalizing of the properties of the hospital, we are against that. What we want is justice given to the fellow resident who was brutally murdered and also a central protection act for protection of the doctors, so that there is no further incident happening in the future.”
Protesters say India’s government has failed to tackle sexual violence since the 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a bus in Delhi sparked nationwide protests.