Before Kolkata doctor rape, an unmet promise to keep India’s physicians safe

Security officials are seen inside and outside the medical emergency ward that was vandalised by an unidentified mob on August 15, inside the premises of R. G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, India, on August 20, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 02 September 2024
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Before Kolkata doctor rape, an unmet promise to keep India’s physicians safe

  • West Bengal pledged hospital security improvements in 2019, memo shows, R.G. Kar Hospital had few guards, missing locks on some doors, witnesses say
  • State government promises reforms, says pandemic delayed some works, violence against women remains major problem over a decade after 2012 Delhi bus rape

KOLKATA: Five years ago, the government of West Bengal state in India pledged to clamp down on violence against doctors. It promised public hospitals better security equipment, female guards to support female physicians and controlled entry points, according to an internal government memo seen by Reuters.

None of these measures had been implemented at the public hospital where a young female doctor was sexually assaulted and killed on Aug. 9, allegedly by a police volunteer, four trainee doctors there told Reuters.

Instead, in the days leading up to the homicide-assault, which prompted nationwide outrage and a doctors strike, only two male guards manned R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, they said.

They were supplemented by a few closed circuit cameras that did not comprehensively cover the sprawling premises, according to the trainees.

One of the doors of the lecture hall where the doctor had been resting during a 36-hour shift when she was attacked had no lock, said two other trainee doctors who had also slept there. The air conditioning in the designated break room had malfunctioned, they said.

After two doctors at a different hospital were assaulted by a patient’s relatives in 2019, West Bengal had promised to install “effective security equipment and systems,” regulate entry and exit to hospital premises and create a compensation policy for assaulted staff, according to the state health department memo dated June 17, 2019.

The two-page document, which is reported by Reuters for the first time, was prepared after chief minister Mamata Banerjee met that day with trainee doctors protesting the attack on their colleagues as a “record note” of the interaction. The memo did not state to whom it was addressed.

Banerjee had directed officials to take “effective and prompt” action “within a specified timeframe,” according to the document. It did not detail the preparation period.

“If those measures had been taken, this incident may never have happened,” said Dr. Riya Bera, a postgraduate trainee at R.G. Kar, of her colleague’s death.

Asked by Reuters about the 2019 assurances, West Bengal Health Secretary N S Nigam said the COVID-19 pandemic had disrupted improvements for two years but “a lot” had been done since 2021, including strengthening CCTV coverage and engaging private security in hospitals.

“We are committed to do the remaining work and fill the gaps that emerged after the R.G. Kar incident,” he said.

Banerjee on Aug. 28 also announced that $12 million would be spent to begin work on improvements such as better lighting in health facilities, resting spaces and female security staff.

The chief minister’s office, as well as R.G. Kar hospital, did not respond to calls seeking comment.

Authorities continue to investigate the Aug. 9 incident, for which no charges have yet been filed.

'PATRIARCHAL ATTITUDES AND BIASES'

The assault on the doctor in Kolkata, who cannot be named under local laws, recalled memories of the 2012 gang rape of a physiotherapist in a Delhi bus, which convulsed India in anger and triggered protests.

Reuters interviewed 14 female doctors at government hospitals in West Bengal and elsewhere in India about their challenges in a country where women’s safety is a long-standing concern.

They described poor working conditions, including aggressive treatment from the families of patients and having to sleep on benches in dimly-lit corridors due to a lack of rest facilities.

Some doctors spoke of napping in break rooms with no locks during lengthy shifts, only to have people barging in. Others described confronting male patients who photographed them without permission, claiming that they were documenting evidence of their treatment.

Indian Medical Association (IMA) President RV Asokan told Reuters that while the Aug. 9 homicide-assault appeared to be unique in its brutality, “the fact that anybody can walk in shows the vulnerability of the place, and this when more and more women are joining the profession.”

Some doctors have taken self-defense measures: One doctor at a hospital in Odisha state, which neighbors West Bengal, said her father gave her a knife to ward off potential attackers.

And Dr. Gauri Seth, a post graduate trainee at Medical College, Kolkata, told Reuters that after the Aug 9. incident, she would not go on duty again without carrying a pepper spray or scalpel to defend herself.

About 60 percent of India’s doctors are female, and three-quarters of them have described being victims of verbal abuse, physical attacks and other harassment while on duty, according to the IMA, the nation’s largest group of physicians.

“Due to ingrained patriarchal attitudes and biases, relatives of patients are more likely to challenge women medical professionals...(they) also face different forms of sexual violence at the workplace,” India’s Supreme Court wrote in a Aug. 20 ruling ordering the creation of a taskforce on medical workers’ safety.

India introduced tough laws governing crimes against women following the 2012 Delhi gang rape, including expanding the definition of rape to include all penetration without consent, as well as criminalizing voyeurism and stalking.

But the situation remains bleak, according to activists and government data.

Almost 450,000 crimes against women were reported in 2022 — the most recent year for which data is available — up 4 percent on 2021, government data show. More than 7 percent of the alleged crimes were rape-related.

Lawyer and rights activist Vrinda Grover blamed inadequate training for police investigators and broader cultural issues.\

“What is very disturbing in this case is the ordinariness of what the victim was doing: she was in her workplace,” she said. “There is something wrong with a society where such conduct is so commonplace.”

LIVING HER DREAM

The 31-year Kolkata physician, whose battered, half-naked body was found by colleagues, had always wanted to be a doctor, family members and friends told Reuters.

“When I bumped into her last year, she told me she was very happy and was living her dream,” said Somojit Moulik, who had studied with the victim in medical school.

When Reuters visited the victim’s family home, the nameplate bore only her name with the prefix Dr, in an indication of how highly her relatives valued her achievements.

Her aunt said in an interview that her niece had been set to marry a physician she had studied with later this year, and that she had not complained about safety issues at work.

But in the wake of her death, colleagues are speaking out. Dr. Shreya Shaw, a postgraduate trainee at R.G. Kar hospital, said she found two strangers shaking her awake at around 3 a.m. when she was sleeping in a designated rest room, which did not have locks.

“It was initially quite scary to wake up to unknown men in the dark,” she said, adding that she was shocked the patients could enter the floor where she was resting without being stopped.

($1 = 83.9000 Indian rupees)


Russia main election monitor closes amid crackdown

Updated 2 sec ago
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Russia main election monitor closes amid crackdown

MOSCOW: Russia’s main independent voting observer Golos, which monitored the country’s increasingly tightly-controlled elections for 25 years, announced its closure on Tuesday, two months after its co-chair was jailed.
Golos — which means “voice” in Russian — had for years meticulously recorded voting fraud across the huge country as elections under President Vladimir Putin’s long rule turned into a ritual with little real choice.
Putin faced no real competition at the last presidential election in 2024 and a domestic crackdown accompanying Moscow’s Ukraine offensive has made voicing different views dangerous.
“Justice, alas, does not always win — it must be fought for. And there is always the risk of losing. This is how it turned out this time,” Golos said in an online statement, adding: “Goodbye.”
The group’s co-chair Grigory Melkonyants, Russia’s most respected independent election observer, was sentenced to five years in prison in May as part of the Kremlin’s sweeping crackdown.
Golos said it had “no choice” but to end its activity after the sentencing as it put its participants “at risk.”
Melkonyants, 44, was found guilty of working with a European election monitoring association outlawed as an “undesirable organization” in Russia — which Golos has repeatedly denied.
Golos has described itself as an “all Russian social movement in defense of voters’ rights.”
It had observers across Russia’s regions and had for years published online reports and maps of violations during elections and had a hotline to report voting fraud.
It said Tuesday it had shut down its regional offices.
International observers have for years reported widespread voter intimidation, ballot stuffing and other election fraud in Russia.

Suspect in shooting of Slovakia’s populist leader Fico stands trial on terror charges

Updated 15 min 48 sec ago
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Suspect in shooting of Slovakia’s populist leader Fico stands trial on terror charges

  • Slovakia’s populist Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot in the abdomen and was transported to a hospital in nearby Banská Bystrica

BRATISLAVA: A man went on trial Tuesday over last year’s attempted assassination of Slovakia’s populist Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Juraj Cintula, appearing in court in the central city of Banská Bystrica, has been indicted on terror charges.
“Long live democracy, long live free culture,” Cintula shouted as he arrived at the Specialized Criminal Court.
The 72-year-old is accused of opening fire on Fico on May 15, 2024, as the prime minister greeted supporters following a government meeting in the town of Handlová, located 140 kilometers (85 miles) northeast of the capital.
Cintula was immediately arrested and was ordered by a court to remain behind bars. If convicted, he faces life imprisonment.
Fico was shot in the abdomen and was transported to a hospital in nearby Banská Bystrica. He underwent a five-hour surgery, followed by another two-hour surgery two days later. He has since recovered.
Cintula originally was charged with attempted murder. Prosecutors later dropped that charge and said they were instead pursuing the more serious charge of engaging in a terror attack, based on evidence the investigators obtained, but they gave no further details.
Government officials initially said that they believed it was a politically motivated attack committed by a “lone wolf,” but announced later that a third party might have been involved in “acting for the benefit of the perpetrator.”
Fico previously said he “had no reason to believe” that it was an attack by a lone deranged person and repeatedly blamed the liberal opposition and media for the assassination attempt.
Fico has long been a divisive figure in Slovakia and beyond. He returned to power for the fourth time after his leftist Smer, or Direction, party won the 2023 parliamentary election after campaigning on a pro-Russia and anti-American message.
His critics have charged that Slovakia under Fico has abandoned its pro-Western course and is following the direction of Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Thousands have repeatedly rallied in the capital and across Slovakia to protest Fico’s pro-Russian stance and other policies.


China says US is in ‘no position’ to point fingers over Tibet issues

Updated 54 min 6 sec ago
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China says US is in ‘no position’ to point fingers over Tibet issues

  • The Dalai Lama is accused of engaging in anti-China separatist activities

BEIJING: China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that the United States was in “no position” to point fingers at the country on Tibet-related issues, urging Washington to fully recognize the “sensitivity” of the issues.

Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning made the remarks when asked to comment on US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statement on the Dalai Lama’s birthday.

Mao said at a regular press conference that the Dalai Lama “is a political exile who is engaged in anti-China separatist activities under the cloak of religion,” and has “no right” to represent the Tibetan people.


In Hiroshima, search for remains keeps war alive for lone volunteer

Updated 08 July 2025
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In Hiroshima, search for remains keeps war alive for lone volunteer

  • Volunteers still descend on Okinawa from all over Japan for excavations
  • While many remains were unearthed in the decades following the war, witness accounts suggested there were more burial grounds

NINOSHIMA: Dozens of times a year, Rebun Kayo takes a ferry to a small island across from the port of Hiroshima in search of the remains of those killed by the atomic bomb 80 years ago.
For the 47-year-old researcher, unearthing even the tiniest fragments on Ninoshima Island is a sobering reminder that the war is a reality that persists — buried, forgotten and unresolved.
“When we die, we are interred in places like temples or churches and bid farewell in a ceremony. That’s the dignified way of being sent off,” said Kayo, a researcher at Hiroshima University’s Center for Peace who spends his own time and money on the solo excavations.
After the United States dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, instantly killing about 78,000 people and injuring far more, Ninoshima, about 4 km (2.5 miles) from the hypocenter, became a field hospital. Within weeks, some 10,000 victims, both dead and alive, were ferried across the water. Many perished soon after, and when cremations could not keep up, people were buried in mass graves.
While many remains were unearthed in the decades following the war, witness accounts suggested there were more burial grounds. The son of a resident informed Kayo about one area on the island’s northwestern coast in 2014 and from there, he saved up funds and began digging four years later.

NO CLOSURE
In searing heat last weekend, Kayo cut through overgrown brush to return to the spot where he had left off three weeks before. After an hour and a half of digging, he carefully picked out two thumbnail-sized bone fragments from the dirt — additions to the roughly 100 he has unearthed so far.
Every discovery brings home to him the cruelty of war. The pain was never as raw as when Kayo found pieces of a young child’s jaw and tooth earlier this year, he said.
“That hit me really hard,” he said, his white, long-sleeve shirt soaked through with sweat. “That child was killed by the bomb, knowing nothing about the world ... I couldn’t come to terms with it for a while, and that feeling still lingers.”
One day, he plans to take all the fragments to a Buddhist temple, where they can be enshrined.
Kayo’s drive for repeating the gruelling task year after year is partly personal.
Born in Okinawa, where some of the bloodiest battles during World War Two were fought, Kayo himself has three relatives whose remains were never found.
Volunteers still descend on Okinawa from all over Japan for excavations, and because the poison ivy in the forests there is prohibitive for him, Kayo returns the favor on Ninoshima instead.
As long as traces of the dead keep turning up, the war’s proximity is palpable for Kayo.
“People today who don’t know about the war focus only on the recovery, and they move the conversation forward while forgetting about these people here,” he said.
“And in the end, you’ll have people saying, ‘even if you drop an atomic bomb, you can recover’ ... There will always be people who try to justify it in a way that suits them.”


Rescuers on horseback, with dogs search for Texas flood victims

Updated 08 July 2025
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Rescuers on horseback, with dogs search for Texas flood victims

  • About 30 volunteers on horseback joined mounted police from Austin to support rescue efforts in four towns along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County

HUNT: Volunteers on horseback and others with rescue dogs are combing riverbanks alongside authorities in central Texas, searching for victims of catastrophic floods that have killed more than 100 people.
Rescuers in inflatable motorboats also searched Monday for bodies near Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp, where 27 campers and counselors died after being swept away by floodwaters.
Another team collected the children’s belongings from flooded cabins marked by mud lines exceeding five feet (1.5 meters) high.
About 30 volunteers on horseback, many wearing cowboy hats, joined mounted police from Austin to support rescue efforts in four towns along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County.
Michael Duncan, 55, rode Ranger, his dark brown horse, along the river, supporting rescue efforts that have deployed hundreds of searchers along several miles of the waterway.
“Obviously (on horseback)... we can gain more ground. We can get to some areas where people can’t get to as easy,” Duncan told AFP.
The horses easily navigate the hilly terrain, undergrowth and debris left behind after the rain-swollen floodwaters receded.
Perched atop Ranger, Duncan said that the “height advantage” allowed him to scan across the mounds of debris.
Volunteers on foot also scoured the area, detecting foul odours from undergrowth that could indicate decomposing animals or human remains.
They dug through earth piled near trees, using pointed sticks to probe mounds for any signs of bodies.
During their search, they found children’s swimming goggles and a football.
Tom Olson, a rescue dog trainer, deployed his eight-year-old Belgian Malinois, Abby, to assist the search.
Olson, 55, compared the dog’s search abilities to a useful tool, “just like underwater sonar boats, drone, aircraft.”
“The dog will be able to rapidly find a potential victim... lowering the risk to the people that are out here actually trying to do the search and rescue,” he told AFP.
Olson said the work to recover victims’ bodies involved “a mental debt” and “emotional debt” but was necessary to bring “closure to the families that lost (people), as well as closure for the rescuers.”
Electric company crews also worked to restore power poles and cables destroyed by the floods as the Guadalupe River receded to its normal course.
Duncan, the mounted volunteer, said the searches filled him with “a lot of sadness” but added: “It’s also great to see how many people come out... and most everybody is doing this for free.
“That’s pretty inspiring to see.”