Darkness descended on Calcutta on Wednesday as many households and offices switched off their lights at 9pm and a sea of people armed with candles and mobile torches hit the roads seeking justice for the RG Kar victim.
Junior doctors spearheading the agitation thundered they would not take it well if the Supreme Court does not hear on Thursday the case it had started suo motu.
“Aaghaat neme aasbe (there will be repercussions),” a representative of the protesting doctors said at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, warning of a fallout if the top court defers the hearing.
“We have been hearing reports from sources that the Supreme Court hearing has been deferred. We want to say if that happens to the collective hope of the country’s people, there will be repercussions (aaghaat neme aasbe),” he said.
The West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Forum, on a cease-work since a junior doctor was found raped and murdered on August 9, had appealed “everyone” to switch off lights, step out with candles and form human chains from 9pm to 10pm on Wednesday to demand justice for the victim.
But thousands of people and many women were on a night vigil on the city’s roads hours after that.
The Gariahat and Shyambazar intersections were completely taken over by protesters. Huge crowds gathered at Biswa Bangla Gate in New Town; in Salt Lake, Jadavpur, College Street; in front of the Academy of Fine Arts, and in many other places.
Many protesters expressed disappointment at the possibility of the Supreme Court not hearing the case on Thursday. The long and tedious legal process is inimical to justice, they said.
“Rapes are still happening. Cases drag for a long time, there is no redress in sight. This needs to stop. Exemplary punishment is needed as a deterrent,” veteran actor Mamata Shankar said at a gathering in Salt Lake.
At RG Kar, the victim’s parents were part of the gathering.
“We did not want to cremate her body so soon. We wanted to keep it longer. But there was pressure to cremate her in haste. We want answers. Who will give them? The police, the administration or the health department?” the father said.
The lights in the open area outside the gates of RG Kar’s emergency ward were switched off. The parents lit candles along with protesting doctors and hundreds of protesters who walked into the hospital to express solidarity. A two-minute silence was observed around 9.30pm.
The campus became so crowded that the CISF jawans shut the emergency gates after the parents arrived. A larger crowd waited on the main road outside.
Darkness, then light
Following the darkness, “lights” were held up by countless Calcuttans who vowed not to let the vigil down until justice is served.
“We were all looking forward to tomorrow’s hearing in the Supreme Court. But we are being told that the hearing has been postponed. If we don’t stand up and protest, then we as women and as society will fail the young doctor who was raped and murdered brutally at her place of work. Despite these protests, violence against women has spiked in the past few days in the city,” said Atreyee Chakraborty, 31, a Salt Lake resident who was part of the vigil in front of the Academy of Fine Arts.
From malls to local clubs, from highrises to huts, it was the same picture. Thousands of voices sang in chorus and shouted slogans together.
At South City Residency, residents led by doctors walked up to Prince Anwar Shah Road. “This is to lend our support to the medical fraternity,” said a resident, Manoj Gupta.
The residents’ welfare association there and at many other places had requested residents to switch off the lights in their apartments or put out some of the common area lights.
In the condominium Urbana, off EM Bypass, many apartments turned off their lights. “It was an unusual sight, something that I have not seen before,” said a resident.
At Orbit Sky View, in Paikpara, lights on the perimeter wall and at the main gate were switched off. Residents brought out a candlelight march vowing to fight for justice for the victim.
Anjan Sen, a resident of Uniworld City in Action Area III of New Town, said: “Many of our residents joined the “reclaim the night” vigil in New Town’s Kolkata Gate crossing.”
‘Eyewash bill’
A “populist sham” was how the protesting doctors at RG Kar described the Aparajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws and Amendment) Bill, 2024, passed unanimously by the Bengal Assembly on Tuesday.
“The chief minister has brought a bill to resist rape. We cannot call this anything but a populist sham (dhappabaji),” a representative of the doctors told a news conference.
“Unless security is beefed up in the health sector and other workplaces, especially for women, the incidents of rape and harassment will not come down. So, without implementing structural reforms in keeping with our demands, bringing such a bill is an eyewash,” he said.
The bill prescribes a life term for all rapes and death for rapes that result in death of the victim or puts the victim in a vegetative state.