A nation scarred: How the rape and murder of Kolkata doctor jolted India’s conscience

The tragedy has also ignited a firestorm in West Bengal. But the larger question remains: how do we stop the violence against women?

A mural in Ajmer, Rajasthan, protesting against the rape and murder of the doctor in Kolkata. There has been massive outrage across the country. | Photo Credit: HIMANSHU SHARMA/AFP

As the clock struck midnight on August 14, heralding the country’s 78th Independence Day, the dark night was rent with cries of defiance and anger, rather than joy and celebration, as lakhs of women came out on to the streets in different parts of West Bengal, with lighted candles, demanding justice for a doctor who was brutally raped and murdered inside R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital where she was on duty.

It was not just the doctor for whom women of all ages and from all walks of life assembled in massive numbers on the streets; it was for themselves and for every vulnerable individual targeted in a seemingly uncaring society, under the watch of an apparently apathetic government.

“Meyera raat dokhol koro [Girls, seize the night]: The Night is Ours” said the banners, and the women had come out to claim the night for their own; some too old to walk without support, some too young to know why they were there, but joyously matching steps with their mothers. “We want justice” was their chant. “Justice” for the 31-year-old trainee doctor (who has been named Abhaya) horrifically murdered in the very place that ought to have been the safest haven for her; and “justice” for all women having to live in fear in a society that has repeatedly failed to ensure their safety.

Not in the past 40 years had West Bengal—a State all too familiar with the tradition of protest—witnessed something like this and on such a large scale. Even the local rickshaw and auto drivers who took the women to the protest sites refused to accept money from them.

The gruesome crime and the social upheaval that followed severely dented the image of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who also happens to be the Health Minister.

Crime details

On the morning of August 9, the bloodied and battered body of Abhaya, a second-year postgraduate trainee doctor of respiratory medicine, was found in the seminar hall of the hospital’s emergency building, bearing clear signs of rape and torture. After a 36-hour shift, she had gone to take rest around 2 am. Earlier that evening, when she had called her parents, little did they know that it would be the last time they would speak to their only child.

Police lathicharge protesters in Howrah, on August 27. | Photo Credit: SUDIPTA BANERJEE/ANI

If the horrific nature of the crime sparked widespread outrage, the perception that the hospital administration and the police were trying to cover up something more sinister added fuel to the public anger. While the police promptly arrested a civic police volunteer named Sanjoy Roy in connection with the crime, several incidents and unanswered questions stoked suspicion among junior doctors and the masses that Roy was not the only one involved.

Soon after the body was discovered, junior doctors, interns, house staffers, and students sat in protest, demanding justice for the victim. A protesting junior doctor at R.G. Kar said: “This crime could not have been committed by one single person. The way the hospital management and the government are behaving, it feels like there is something that they are trying to conceal from the outside world.”

Abhaya’s parents too alleged that the hospital was trying to “cover up the facts”. Initially, they told the media that the first call they received from the hospital, at 10:53 am, informed them that their daughter had taken ill. A little later, they received another call, that said she had “probably” taken her own life. The harassment had just begun for them. Once they reached the hospital, they had to wait for nearly three hours before they could see their daughter’s body.

The victim’s mother said: “We pleaded with the police to let us see her; they said that investigation was on. We underwent a lot of harassment that day…. They tried to turn the case and took out papers from her bag and told me that these showed that she used to take medicines and was unwell. I told them that she had suffered from an unknown bite, and that those were the reports and the medicines she was taking for it. They could not turn the matter after that.”

The parents also spoke of the rush with which Abhaya’s body was cremated. “After we signed the papers, we saw the body being taken out of the gates, and after that we saw nothing else,” they said.

High Court intervention

On August 13, the Calcutta High Court transferred the investigation of the case from the Kolkata Police to the Central Bureau of Investigation. A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya said: “We would be well justified in accepting the plea raised by the writ petitioners, more particularly the parents of the victim, that there is every possibility that the evidence will be destroyed and the witnesses will be influenced.”

The court also pointed out that a case of “unnatural death” is usually registered when there is no complaint, referring to the local Tala police station’s decision to initially register the case as an “unnatural death”.

“When the deceased victim was a doctor working in the hospital, it is rather surprising as to why the principal/hospital did not lodge a formal complaint. This is a serious lapse leaving room for suspicion,” the court observed.

At a protest on the night of August 14, at Jadavpur in Kolkata. | Photo Credit: JAYANTA SHAW

Several factors in the investigation process and incidents following the discovery of the crime added to the confusion and suspicion about the intentions of the hospital authorities and the State government. According to a submission in the court, the police made an entry of “unnatural death” at 10:10 am, the post-mortem was carried out between 6:10 pm and 7:10 pm, and the FIR was registered after the cremation of the body at 11:45 pm. The suspicions grew stronger when even the Supreme Court, which had taken suo motu cognisance of the case, pointed out glaring flaws in the investigation procedure. A Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud and Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra found it “very disturbing” that the police took nearly 14 hours to convert its report of “unnatural death” to an FIR.

“Sandip Ghosh [the principal of R.G. Kar] should have come straight to the college and filed an FIR. Who was he protecting?” CJI Chandrachud asked. Justice Pardiwala observed: “In my entire 30-year career as a lawyer and judge, I have never come across such a procedure followed by the police for registering an FIR in a rape and murder case.”

The apex court issued several directives, including the establishment of a National Task Force, to examine the issues concerning safety and dignity of doctors and medical professionals and to address gender-based violence and other issues concerning the well-being and safety of doctors and other medical professionals at their workplace.

Allegations gain strength

Pankaj Dutta, retired Inspector General of Police, pointed out that even if the R.G. Kar authorities did not seek an FIR, the police should have initiated one suo motu. “The FIR was finally lodged at 11:45 pm; thus the police failed to take prompt possible action when the evidence was fresh. In my opinion, by the time they did take action, it was already too late,” Dutta told Frontline. He added that there was no need for such a hurry in cremating the body. “In such an extraordinary case, the body should have been made available for a second autopsy,” he said.

The allegations that the delay may have been a ploy to tamper with the evidence gained strength after the hospital’s decision to start renovation work a day after the crime in the same building where the rape and murder took place. “It takes six months just to get a table, and it took them just a day to start renovations,” a doctor at R.G. Kar told Frontline. In fact, the CBI is probing whether the body of the victim was in the seminar room to begin with.

A more glaring indication that there might have been a calculated attempt to destroy evidence at the scene of crime came when hundreds of miscreants attacked the emergency building at R.G. Kar on the night of August 14, when the women staged their “Raat dokhol” protest. In one particular video, the goons can be heard saying: “Let’s go next to the seminar room.” Later, Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal admitted that there was a lapse in police intelligence that led to the failure to prevent the havoc unleashed that night.

Sandip Ghosh, former principal of R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, during a CBI raid at his residence on August 25. | Photo Credit: DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP

Sandip Ghosh under scanner

In the midst of the general outcry against the crime, allegations began to pour forth against the influential but controversial figure of Dr Sandip Ghosh at the centre of the incident. He had been the principal of R.G. Kar since 2021. In 2023, he was transferred twice following allegations of financial irregularities but was soon brought back—a testament to the political clout he wielded.

According to Dr Akhtar Ali, former deputy superintendent of the hospital, who has previously raised the issue of Ghosh’s alleged corruption, the ex-principal was involved in various illegal activities, ranging from taking a cut on all hospital-related tenders, accepting money for allotment of hostels and staff selection, and selling unclaimed cadavers.

“He was so influential that in spite of my repeated complaints no one investigated anything…. He used to take Rs.8-10 lakh from students for passing them in postgraduation exams and Rs.2.5-3.5 lakh at the undergraduate level,” Ali told Frontline.

Ali also claimed that he had gone to Mamata’s residence once and handed his complaint to the Officer on Special Duty there. “Maybe the complaint never reached her,” he said. He has lodged complaints against Ghosh with the Anti-Corruption Bureau, the Vigilance Commission, and Swasthya Bhavan (headquarters of the Health Department).

Under orders from the Calcutta High Court, the CBI has now started investigating the financial irregularities allegedly committed by Ghosh. The Enforcement Directorate too has taken up the case.

Highlights

• The gruesome rape and murder of a young doctor inside Kolkata’s R.G. Kar Hospital has ripped open festering wounds in India’s healthcare system, igniting widespread protests and exposing corruption, negligence, and political apathy.
• As women reclaim the night with candles and defiant chants, the tragedy has morphed into a watershed moment, forcing a reluctant establishment to confront systemic failures in hospital security, medical education, and law enforcement.
• With Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s leadership under intense scrutiny and investigations pointing to deeper rot, the nation grapples with hard questions about the safety of its healers and the integrity of those sworn to protect them.

Financial rackets

Interestingly, the very day Ghosh resigned from R.G. Kar, in the face of the doctors’ agitation, he was made principal of the Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital (CNMCH), leading to renewed protests. A shocked High Court wondered why he “should be rewarded” and instructed the Health Department to send him on long leave. On August 28, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) suspended Ghosh. The CBI has since conducted polygraph tests on Ghosh, Sanjoy Roy, and six others in connection with the case.

Police disperse students on a march to the Secretariat, in Kolkata on August 27. | Photo Credit: SWAPAN MAHAPATRA/PTI

According to Debasish Das, a senior doctor and honorary secretary of the Ophthalomological Society of West Bengal, the ongoing financial rackets may well be linked to the murder. “There are many reasons behind the murder, and the entire State machinery is trying to hush up something and ensuring that the main culprits do not come to the fore. That is making people more suspicious,” he said.

Jayita Chakrabarti, an eminent gynaecologist, pointed out that even if there was no attempt on the part of the State to conceal anything, the incident was still an unforgivable lapse. “If we accept at face value what the State is saying so far, that Sanjoy Roy alone was responsible and that it is a straight case of rape and murder, it is still a heinous lapse on the government’s part. This girl was doing her duty in her own hospital and the government was her employer. The government is responsible for her protection. How could an outsider just walk into the hospital unchecked? There should have been much more kindness and empathy on the part of the hospital,” she said.

Sanjoy Roy, although an outsider, was no stranger to the ins and outs of R.G. Kar. He was reported to be associated with the Police Welfare Committee and had helped with the hospitalisation of police personnel and their family members. He apparently had unchecked access to the hospital.

Civic police volunteers

Roy’s arrest has raised questions on the civic police volunteer force that Mamata introduced in 2011, the extra-legal powers it appears to wield locally owing to its association with the police force, and its links to the local leaders of the ruling Trinamool Congress.

Roy apparently had a swaggering presence in the area where he operated: he rode a police motorbike and even lived in the police barracks. Incidentally, just two days after the gruesome tragedy in R.G. Kar, an inebriated civic police volunteer threatened a female doctor of Bhatar Hospital in Purba Bardhaman, warning her that she would meet the same fate as Abhaya.

At a protest in Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, on August 29. | Photo Credit: JAI KUMAR/ANI

Earlier, in 2022, a civic police volunteer was involved in the unnatural death of 22-year-old Anis Khan, a student leader from Howrah district. Although both civic volunteers were arrested, their behaviour suggested an impunity derived from their association with the police force in the State. Although they have no authority to take part in police investigations or intervene in law and order situations or make arrests or issue fines, they have been known to transgress their boundaries on several occasions. According to an administrative source, it is not uncommon for influential local political leaders to get their own men into the civic volunteer force. “This also provides the party with an army of able-bodied unemployed beneficiaries that can be put to use for different political purposes.”

The brutal crime has sparked massive protests, with people from all walks of life hitting the streets for three consecutive weeks (as of August 30), demanding justice for Abhaya. Even the traditional football rivals—East Bengal, Mohun Bagan, and Mohammedan Sporting—buried their century-long rivalry to jointly demand justice for the victim.

Nationwide protests and global support

Junior doctors and interns in government hospitals across the State refused to go back to work, which severely impacted the healthcare system. The fraternity of doctors all across the country joined them in their protest as did civil society in various parts of the country.

Doctors’ organisations from Pakistan and Bangladesh too voiced their solidarity with the doctors of R.G. Kar, and echoes of the civil protest could be heard as far away as the US and Australia.

Abhaya’s case also featured in the August 24 issue of The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal. The article said: “If such a crime can occur in a tertiary care centre in a major city like Calcutta, how can women doctors feel safe in district hospitals or rural centres?”

Anger against Mamata

For the first time, Mamata, one of the biggest mass leaders the State has ever seen, faced the brunt of public anger. She condemned the crime and demanded the most severe punishment for Sanjoy Roy. She blamed the opposition parties for trying to create a “Bangladesh-like situation” in West Bengal. She even brought out a protest march herself, demanding justice for the victim.

Her police tried to clamp down on the protests and sent summons to many people, including doctors, but nothing quelled the anger. Several clubs reportedly refused to accept the State government’s Rs.85,000 Durga Puja allowance, and the renowned writer and teacher Parimal Dey announced that he wished to return the prestigious Banga Ratna award given to him in 2016.

Surajit C. Mukhopadhyay, a well-known sociologist, pointed out that the protest in West Bengal was reminiscent of the manner in which Bangladeshi students initially conducted their agitation: spontaneously and with no political leadership. “People were outraged. Other rapes have been protested but they did not have the same resonance as this. The protests here fed off the Bangladesh movement.… It has resuscitated political consciousness and people again believe that their voices count,” he said.

Even some of the most senior and steadfast members of the Trinamool could not keep silent, and they earned the party’s ire by publicly voicing their opinion.

A view of the August 14 night protest, at Shyambazar near R.G. Kar Hospital. | Photo Credit: JAYANTA SHAW

Senior leader and former Rajya Sabha member Santanu Sen, himself a doctor, said that he could not ignore the voice of his conscience. “In the past few years, the medical education at R.G. Kar has hit rock bottom. If one can satisfy a handful of people there, one can get to know the question paper, one can cheat in the exams…. If they can be appeased, one gets honours; if one cannot make them happy, one is failed. This has happened with my own daughter. Is the entire medical fraternity wrong about Sandip Ghosh?” he asked. Soon after this outburst, Sen was removed from his post as party spokesperson and Adviser to the Health Department of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.

Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Sekhar Roy was served a notice by the Kolkata Police after he suggested that the CBI do a “custodial interrogation” of Vineet Goyal and Sandip Ghosh. In a message on social media he asked: “Why there are attempts to shield the beasts?”

Abhishek’s silence

What, however, has been most intriguing is the studied silence of Abhishek Banerjee, the Trinamool general secretary, Mamata’s nephew, and heir apparent to the party leadership, which seemed to indicate his displeasure with the handling of the issue. After speaking out soon after the incident, and even suggesting that the culprits be either hanged or killed in “encounters”, he was conspicuous by a long absence even though Mamata was facing one the most severe storms in her political career. He re-emerged in public to share the dais with Mamata on August 28, the occasion of the foundation day of the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad, the party’s students’ wing, where he demanded Sandip Ghosh’s arrest.

As of August 30, three weeks after the crime, the situation has only grown murkier. Questions keep piling up with every passing day, with no signs of credible answers. For Mamata, this has been the most trying period in her 13-year tenure as Chief Minister.

For the first time, the widespread anger is not so much against her party as it is against her, and the more that she and her party are trying to deal with the situation politically, the more they seem to be failing to sound convincing or to stem the popular wrath.

What has perhaps hit the image-conscious Mamata the most is the bad press she and her party is getting not just in West Bengal but nationally and internationally. Now, with the investigation taken out of the State government’s hands, she and her colleagues are in a desperate damage-control mode. But this is one time that Didi might have to find solutions that reach beyond her own political survival.