NEW DELHI: Abnormally long shifts for junior doctors are common and even the rules do not limit these unreasonably long hours.
The Kolkata-based RG Kar Medical College, established in 1886 and named after philanthropist Dr Radha Gobinda Kar, had no dedicated and protected resting place for trainee doctors who were attached with the chest department, forcing the 31-year-old female PGT doctor, who was a second-year student in the Department of Chest Medicine to take rest in the seminar hall. She was on a 30-hour shift.
Students and members of the staff told The Sunday Guardian that since this department did not have any resting place for the specialists attached with it, those who were on night duty, had no option but to rest in the seminar hall, which is located on the third floor of the emergency building of the department.
The said seminar hall has the capacity to seat 60-70 people and lectures and seminars were conducted in this room from time to time.
According to the sources present in the hospital, the building is always crowded with patients, their attendants, apart from hospital staff, and at the night of the crime too the building saw the same kind of crowd.
The mutilated body of the doctor was discovered semi-naked inside the seminar hall on the morning of 9 August. Her body was covered with various marks from injuries and it was later revealed that she was raped and then murdered. As per sources, the rape took place between 3 am and 5 am on the morning of 9 August. She has been on the 30-hour duty since Thursday, 8 August.
Abnormally long shifts for junior doctors are common and even the rules do not limit these unreasonably long hours.
As per rules mentioned in the National Medical Council PG Medical Education Regulations, 2023, under Chapter V clause 5.2 (ii), “All PG students will work as full time resident doctors. They will work for reasonable working hours and will provide reasonable time for rest in a day”.
According to a PG doctor, they consider themselves lucky if they are able to sleep or rest for 2-3 hours in a day during the 30-hour shift.
Sources told The Sunday Guardian that the parents of the girl received a call from the Assistant Superintendent of the hospital at about 10.53 a.m. on 10 August, who told them that their daughter was unwell. Later, 22 minutes later, at about 11.15 a.m., the same Assistant Superintendent informed them that their daughter had committed suicide in the hospital premises.
When the parents rushed to the hospital, they were not permitted to see their daughter’s body and were made to wait for three hours. They were allowed to see the body of their daughter only after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee intervened and instructed the Commissioner of Police to grant access.
The parents found that there were bleeding injuries over the body and there was no cloth on the lower part of the body. According to sources aware of the development, the parents have told the court that they believe that more than one individual was involved in this crime and it was a case of gang rape.
Sources in the hospital too stated that the nature of the injury that she suffered indicates that more than one person was involved in the assault and her subsequent murder.
The state police have arrested one individual for his alleged involvement in the crime. The case is now being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation, on the directions of the Calcutta High court.
Sources said that the forensic report will make it clear on the media speculation about the presence of 150 ml of semen found in the body. Sources said that the same has not been mentioned in the post mortem report and hence it would be premature to comment on the quantity. However, forensic experts said that the condition in which the body was found and the kind of injuries it had make it clear that more than one person was involved in the crime.
According to the members of the hospital, from the beginning, since the time the body was discovered, the state police and the top officials of the hospital failed to do their job.
“We had to resort to protest to get a magisterial inquest done in this case, something which the West Bengal police should have done on its own and promptly. Secondly, neither the police nor the top officials stopped the construction activities that were happening adjacent to the crime scene till we raised a hue and cry. Is this how professional police work?” a doctor present in the hospital after the crime was discovered, told The Sunday Guardian.
Similarly, recalling the mob attack that took place on the protesting students on the intervening night between Wednesday and Thursday, the doctors and the students said that a day before too a mob had tried to enter the crime scene at the chest department but had to retreat after the students stopped them.
However, on the night of Wednesday-Thursday, in the two-hour mayhem, the mob was able to enter the premises despite the presence of a police force, vandalising the emergency department, nursing station, and medicine store, while also damaging CCTV cameras and ransacking a stage where the junior doctors had been demonstrating.
“In view of the earlier attempt, we had anticipated that a similar attack would take place again, but the police did not do anything to prevent this. They have their intelligence system, how did they allow the mob to gather and attack us for two hours? What was the motive behind this entire attack? The mobsters told the uniformed nurses that they would come back again and rape each one of them. Why did Abhishek Gupta, DCP North, not attend our calls for help? Why did the policemen ask the women protestors to come at the front of the protest march even as they saw the mob moving towards us? We don’t trust the state government or the state police to investigate and get to the bottom of this horrific crime”, a doctor told The Sunday Guardian.
Senior lawyer Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharya, who is representing the parents of the deceased girl, while speaking to The Sunday Guardian alleged that the attackers belonged to the Trinamool Congress party.
“The attack was mentioned before the honourable High Court on Friday, seeking an inquiry into it. The attackers belong to the Trinamool Congress and attacked the hospital premises to scare the protestors and contaminate the crime scene.”
He also termed the media reports about the presence of 150 ml semen as “speculative”.
The state government, while responding to the claims of the parents in the court, accepted many of the claims made by the parents.
According to the state government, at about 10.10 a.m. information was received by the outpost police at the RG Kar Medical College & Hospital about this crime, after which at around 10.30 a.m. the local police from Tala police station was informed.
At 11.00 a.m. the homicide team reached the RG Kar Medical College & Hospital and by then more than 150 people had gathered. By 11.30 a.m., the Additional Commissioner of Police and senior officers had rushed to the site.
As per the state government, the parents of the victim arrived at 1.00 p.m. Since the incident happened in the seminar room, the forensic team was examining the seminar room, they were asked to wait and at 1.10 p.m. the parents were given access into the seminar hall.
The state government has termed the statement of the parents that they were made to wait for three hours as false. The post-mortem of the victim was done between 6.10 p.m. and 7.10 p.m, more than 12 hours after the crime was committed.