Justice for Dr Abhaya, gang-raped and murdered in a Kolkata hospital

“SOMETHING is rotten in the state of Denmark,” is a famous line from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. The same sentence perfectly fits West Bengal today under the rule of chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s All India Trinamool Congress (TMC). 

The horrific incident of gang-rape and murder of a young female doctor, Abhaya, as named by her colleagues, within the premises of the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital (MCH) in Kolkata has stunned the sensibilities of all citizens of the country. The crude attempts by the state government led by Banerjee to hush up this gruesome crime are highly condemnable. 

The incident took place in the early hours of August 9 2024 while the young doctor was on duty. The parents of the victim were misled that their daughter had committed suicide. They were made to wait for more than three hours before they could see the dead body of their daughter, their only child. The parents lodged a complaint and filed a first information report (FIR). 

Meanwhile, one civic volunteer, Sanjay Roy, who was found in the police barrack has been arrested as the only suspect. The lackadaisical performance of the state police and failure to make any progress in the case led to serious doubts about the investigation. The parents had to approach the Kolkata High Court with the post-mortem report which clearly indicated that it was a case of gang-rape before the murder. 

There was also clear evidence of multiple brutal injuries on various parts of the victim’s body. They demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation probe which was ordered by the High Court on August 14. Now a special investigation team has been formed by the state government to look into the irregularities during the tenure of Dr Sandip Ghosh, ex-principal of the RG Kar MCH.
 
The behaviour of Dr Ghosh is suspicious in the extreme. He not only did not file an FIR but also blamed the deceased doctor for her rape and murder, saying that “it was irresponsible for her to go to the seminar hall alone at night” and abused her as being “psychotic.” 

This exposes the utter insensitivity of the principal. This doctor was on a 36-hour duty and there was no facility for rest in the hospital. The administration did not think it was its responsibility to provide proper rest rooms for the staff on duty. 

He shirked his responsibility of providing a safe and secure atmosphere within the hospital premises. This is a stark reminder of how the victim gets victimised again and blamed for the violence which she undergoes. In the cases of “Nirbhaya” in Delhi in 2012 and the Shakti Mills journalist victim in Mumbai  in 2013, they too were blamed for being out at night and performing their job responsibilities. We must strongly protest against this targeting of the victim of violence and it must not be tolerated henceforth.    

Various irregularities within RG Kar MCH have surfaced in the media. The principal submitted his resignation from this institution and was promptly installed into the position of principal of the Kolkata National Medical College and Hospital. This order was later rescinded due to public pressure. 

The Calcutta High Court disapproved of this haste and ordered him to go on long leave. Why did the government transfer the principal when he should have actually been dismissed? He deserved to be disqualified from being a principal in any medical educational institution. Why is he such a favourite with those in power? What are his links with them? Suddenly, 43 doctors and professors including those from RG Kar hospital were transferred. This order too was revoked just 24 hours after it was issued. Why was this done in such a hurry when an investigation is going on into such a heinous crime in this institution? 

In the meantime, the walls of the hall near the seminar room, where the crime occurred, were broken down under the pretext of “renovation.” The audacity of the hospital administration to tamper with the evidence shows its desperation to protect some people linked with this crime. The brazen attack by thousands of hoodlums on the protesting doctors and students, to terrorise them, and the destruction of the RG Kar hospital premises, with the Kolkata police standing by in a paralysed manner, unnerved every person watching it through the media. 

This happened when thousands of people were protesting all over the country under the banner of Reclaim the Night on August 14, the eve of Independence Day. This attack was clearly aimed at destroying evidence. When criminals rule the roost, they can go to any lengths, throwing all laws and democratic processes to the winds. The arrogance stems from the protection and political patronage that criminals receive in our system today. They think themselves to be beyond and above the law of the land. They become the law of the land. 

The role of the TMC state government, police and hospital administration is under suspicion. There have been a series of misleading statements from them. The way that the state government and hospital authorities have been trying to cover up this crime creates suspicion that there may be some truth in the disturbing reports appearing in the media. 

Newspapers have alleged drug-trafficking, sex rackets, pornography rackets, within the hospital premises, profiteering from the sale of hospital medicines and equipment, poor families left at the mercy of touts who charge for admissions and treatment in government hospitals, etc. There are many unanswered questions. Who floated the suicide theory? Why was it done? Why were the walls of the hall allowed to be demolished by the hospital administration? Why were sniffer dogs brought in and used after three days and not immediately?

TMC-ruled West Bengal, like BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, has the ignominious record of the state government standing by those accused of crimes against women. A woman was gang-raped by five men in a moving car on February 6 2012 in what has become notorious as the Park Street case. 

When she reported the crime, chief minister Banerjee called her a liar and accused her of trying the embarrass the government. She steadfastly pursued her fight for justice which ended in the conviction of the five rapists. She later became a women’s rights activist and anti-rape campaigner. She passed away in 2015. 

A 21-year girl from Kamduni village in North 24 Parganas district, who was the first in her family to go to college, was gang-raped by eight men and murdered in 2013. She was returning home after classes. She was dragged by the rapists into a corner and repeatedly raped and brutally killed. Her body was mutilated in a barbaric manner and dumped in a nearby field. 

The victim’s friend, Tumpa who raised her voice for justice for her friend, was repeatedly threatened not to pursue the case. A bomb was hurled at her house to frighten her. Three rapists were sentenced to death, three were given life imprisonment and two were acquitted by the trial court in 2016. In 2023, the Kolkata High Court commuted the death sentence of two convicts and acquitted one while three others who were handed life sentences were acquitted of rape charges and only convicted for criminal conspiracy and hiding evidence. 

My organisation, the All India Democratic Women’s Association, does not advocate the death penalty. But while commuting the death sentences of two and acquitting one, the High Court noted that “the injuries on the victim in this case were not as grave as the ones suffered by the victim in the Nirbhaya gang-rape case.” The details of the mutilation of the Kamduni victim’s body cannot be described. The dead victim cannot narrate the agony she underwent when her body was mutilated. Words fail in commenting on such comparisons made by the High Court. Tumpa and many of the victim’s friends were on the roads again a decade later demanding justice for the RG Kar hospital doctor. 

On April 4 2022, a 14-year-old class 9 student was gang-raped in Hanskhali in Nadia district. She managed to reach home bleeding and in severe pain. One of the rapists threatened to set their house on fire if her father took his profusely bleeding daughter to the police station or hospital. The child bled to death. The rapists forcibly snatched the dead body from the parents, doused it with kerosene and burnt it hurriedly. Her parents finally lodged a police complaint on April 9. Chief minister Banerjee again uttered rotten words. “The girl had an affair with a boy and maybe she was pregnant,” was the condemnable statement from a woman chief minister trying to protect the rapists who belonged to the TMC. The Kolkata High Court handed over this case to the CBI.  

Sandeshkhali in West Bengal and Hassan in Karnataka are horrific tales of unabated sexual exploitation by the powerful. Patriarchy, lawlessness, and complete lack of accountability has led to a total loss of faith of women in the Establishment. The electronic media, in a race for one-upmanship and the scramble for advertising reach, indulges in sensationalism when reporting even heinous crimes as the Kolkata one. 

We are subjected to gory details and vivid descriptions with images of the injuries suffered by the woman. No thought is given to the pain that the already traumatised family has to undergo repeatedly. No respect is shown to the woman who has lost her life. No-one cared what would happen to the women who would be exposed in those videos in Hassan. They are still facing the brunt of a judgmental patriarchal society where women victims are shamed and shunned. The state has failed to protect women and those in charge must be held accountable for the political patronage given to the accused. 

The case of Aruna Shanbaug was mentioned in the Supreme Court. This 25-year-old medical staff was brutally assaulted when on duty by Sohanlal, a sweeper in the KEM Hospital in Mumbai on November 27 1973. He twisted a dog chain around her neck and sodomised her. She was found in an unconscious state after 12 hours. She suffered severe brain damage and paralysis. She remained in a coma, and survived in this vegetative state for 42 years. The accused was sentenced to only seven years concurrent imprisonment for robbery and assault but not rape! Sodomy was not considered rape in 1973! He was released in 1980. Shanbaug continued to be a victim of his brutality till she died. He went to his village in Uttar Pradesh, married, and is living with his family and working in a power station. Shanbaug never recovered and passed away on May 18 2015. Strange are the ways of justice in our country.

The heinous rape and murder crimes against Dalit women in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh like Hathras and Unnao, and the BJP-RSS-related Kathua rape and murder case, are all extensively documented. The RSS is the extreme-right Hindu nationalist paramilitary organisation linked with the ruling BJP party. 

Ram Rahim, convicted in 2017 for raping two women, has been given parole 10 times for a total of 235 days. He has again been given parole by the Punjab and Haryana High Court just one day before our 77th Independence Day. Bilkis Banoo’s gang-rapists were pardoned and released from jail on our 75th Independence Day. It is another matter that she appealed against this heinous act of the Gujarat state government to the Supreme Court, which sent them back to jail. What message does all this send to the women of India? After 77 years of independence, the road to justice is still a long way away. 

National Crime Records Bureau data shows that 30,000 cases of rape are registered every year. This means that 86 women are victims of rape in India every day. Shamefully, the conviction rate is as low as 27 per cent. Incidents of sexual violence have recently surfaced in Uttarakhand (a nurse was raped and killed), in Bihar (a 14-year Dalit minor was gang-raped and killed in Muzaffarpur) and in Maharashtra (two four-year girls were sexually abused by the sweeper in an RSS-run school at Badlapur in Thane district). The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA-India) political coalition has given a call for a bandh (general strike, or “shutdown”) in the state of Maharashtra to condemn the Badlapur incidents on August 24.

The Central Bureau of Investigation must conduct a proper investigation and immediately arrest all of the accused. Immediate inquiry must be started against the Kolkata police for dereliction of duty and irregularities in the initial investigation. All those accused of vandalising the hospital must be arrested. A full-fledged probe must be initiated into the attempts to destroy evidence and persons responsible for the same must be prosecuted. The RG Kar Medical College and Hospital must take urgent steps to implement the Sexual Harassment of Women at the Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act. The hospital authorities must make immediate provisions for rest rooms with proper facilities like wash rooms, beds, etc.

Capitalism, consumerism, patriarchy, glorification of Manuwadi (Hindu chauvinist) practices that reinforce the subordinate status of women, denial of equal rights, denigration of women rights activists, impunity to criminals, the growing acceptance to all kinds of violence in the name of religion and caste leading to the desensitisation of our society, are a threat to every citizen. The rotting system in India must be unitedly uprooted to build an equal and just society.

Mariam Dhawale is general secretary of the All-India Democratic Women’s Association, founded in 1981 and with a current membership of around 11 million.