How the murder of a female doctor sparked protests and strikes in India

Indian doctors have been holding mass protests for over a week, demanding that the authorities ensure their safety. Last weekend, only emergency services were operating in the country. Read more in the RBC article Why doctors' protests began in India

On August 20, the Supreme Court of India will hear the murder case of doctor Moumita Debnath on a priority basis. The 31-year-old resident worked at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, the capital of the state of West Bengal, one of the largest in the country. Her body was found on August 9 in a seminar room where she went to rest after having dinner with colleagues. The autopsy results, cited by The Indian Express, showed 16 external and nine internal injuries, signs of forced sexual intercourse and manual strangulation.

The court will hear the case suo motu (from the Latin for “on its own initiative”), that is, without a lawsuit from law enforcement agencies. This format allows the Supreme Court to hear cases that are of paramount public interest, The Times of India writes. “In this case, in the context of how seriously the incident has affected the morale and safety of health workers across the country, the involvement of the court is vital,” the newspaper notes.

On Saturday, Kolkata police arrested a suspect in the Debnath case, Sanjay Roy, 33, who worked at the hospital as a "civil volunteer." The family of the deceased insists there was more than one assailant and that the woman was gang-raped. After local police were accused of mishandling the investigation, the case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation in New Delhi.

Following Debnath's death, thousands of Indian health workers took to the streets of Kolkata and its suburbs early last week. The protests soon spread to the western state of Maharashtra, its capital and the country's largest city, Mumbai, where all hospital departments except emergency rooms were closed. Strikes also took place in the capital New Delhi, the city of Lucknow (the capital of the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh in the northeast) and the state of Goa in the southwest.

Photo: Adnan Abidi / ReutersPhoto: Ritesh Shukla / Getty ImagesPhoto: Sahiba Chawdhary / ReutersPhoto: Priyanshu Singh / ReutersPhoto: Sahiba Chawdhary / ReutersPhoto: Francis Mascarenhas / ReutersPhoto: Francis Mascarenhas / ReutersPhoto: Priyanshu Singh / ReutersPhoto: Sahiba Chawdhary / ReutersPhoto: Sahiba Chawdhary / Reuters

In a statement on August 10, the Indian Medical Association (IMA; founded in 1928) said that “if security cannot be ensured in citadels of learning, it is a sign of incompetence.” The IMA also noted that Debnath’s death was not the first murder of a female doctor. In 2023, 22-year-old Vandana Das was killed in a hospital in Kottarakkara, a southern state of Kerala, when she was stabbed to death with scissors by a man who had been brought in for a medical check-up by police.

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What are the protesters demanding?

"Doctors, especially women, are by nature extremely vulnerable to violence. It is the authorities who must ensure their safety on hospital and campus grounds," the IMA said in a statement, which it has been publishing daily since August 10. The association immediately made three demands on the authorities.

• An impartial and thorough investigation into the Mumita Debnath case and bringing all those responsible to justice.
• A detailed investigation into the conditions that contributed to the crime.
• Urgent steps to improve the safety of doctors – especially women – in the workplace.

The IMA gave the authorities 48 hours to comply with the demands, otherwise promising to call doctors' strikes.

However, the reaction of a part of Indian society to the actions of doctors was unexpected. On August 15, a large crowd stormed the hospital where Debnath was killed, destroying the emergency room and the nursing station. According to the Kolkata police, the number of rioters reached 5-7 thousand people, they also attacked protesting doctors and students. About 30 people involved in the riots have been arrested so far.

On August 17, IMA posted a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on social media X, reiterating how vulnerable doctors are in India and offering five suggestions to prevent such situations in the future.

• Pass a law protecting doctors - doctors have been insisting on this since 2019.
• Strengthen hospital safety protocols to be comparable to those in place at airports.
• Improve the working conditions of doctors, in particular, introduce safe rest rooms for them.
• Conduct thorough and professional investigations of crimes against doctors.
• Introduce adequate compensation for the families of the deceased.

The IMA also announced a 24-hour strike from 6am on August 17 to 6am on the 18th, during which time all non-emergency health services across the country were suspended.

What is the situation in India regarding attacks on women

The problem of sexualized violence against women is extremely acute in India. CBS News draws attention to the fact that the current protests are comparable to those that took place in 2012. They broke out after a group of six men attacked a 23-year-old student paramedic on a bus in Delhi. She was raped with particular brutality, after which she was thrown out of the bus. The girl was hospitalized, she was able to give a statement, but soon died from her injuries.

In 2013, India toughened the punishment for this type of crime: the prison term for rapists was increased from 7-10 years to 20, the death penalty was introduced in cases where the crime resulted in the death or vegetative state of the victim; throwing acid on women, stalking them, and voyeurism were given separate classification.

After the law was passed, four of the accused in the Delhi attack were sentenced to death by hanging in jail; one of the perpetrators was a minor and was sentenced to three years in prison; and another committed suicide before being sentenced.

However, statistics show that tougher punishment has not solved the problem — the number of crimes against women has even increased over the past ten years. In 2012, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), about 25,000 attacks were recorded, while in 2016, about 39,000 attacks were recorded. In 2018, on average, one woman reported a rape every 15 minutes. In 2020, there were fewer crimes — 28,000, but this is due to the COVID-19 pandemic . In 2021, the NCRB reported 31,600 attacks (an average of 86 per day); In total, 428.2 thousand cases of attacks on women were opened then - these crimes include rape, acid attacks, incitement to suicide, kidnapping, forced marriage, human trafficking, stalking, etc. At the same time, the proportion of convictions remains low - in 2019, only 27.8% of suspects were convicted in such cases.

As The Associated Press notes, many cases go unreported, due to the reluctance of many victims and their families to report such crimes and a lack of trust in the police. “Women’s rights activists say the problem is especially acute in rural areas, where victims of sexualized violence are shamed and families worry about their social standing,” the agency explains.

Prime Minister Modi addressed the issue of violence against women in his Independence Day address on August 15, amid the protests. He called the issue urgent and spoke of a visible public outrage. “Crimes against women must be investigated without any delay. Those who commit such demonic acts must be held prima facie accountable to restore confidence in the government, the judiciary and the civil society,” the prime minister said. He noted that the media talks a lot about the victims but not the perpetrators, and it is important to talk about the perpetrators widely, “so that they fear the consequences, including hanging.”

IMA, in its message to Modi, took note of his statement, expressed gratitude and urged the prime minister to intervene. “This will give confidence not only to women doctors but to all women in the workplace,” the IMA said.