Junior doctors at government medical colleges who are on cease-work said they do not support any violent means to demand justice for the postgraduate trainee who was raped and murdered at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9.
Their protests have been peaceful from the beginning, the doctors said, and asserted that the cease-work would continue.
Violence and chaos reigned during a march to Nabanna on Tuesday, which was organised by an outfit named Paschimbanga Chhatra Samaj. The protesters broke police barricades, pelted cops with stones and were seen beating up policemen. The cops fired tear gas shells and lathicharged protesters in some places.
The doctors did not name Paschimbanga Chhatra Samaj when asked whether they condemned the violence during Tuesday’s rally.
Many junior doctors said they had no links with the organisers of Tuesday’s Nabanna Abhijan. They also decided to go ahead with a rally, called by the West Bengal
Junior Doctors’ Front, at noon on Wednesday, despite the 12-hour bandh called by the BJP.
“We condemn any violent means adopted to demand justice for our colleague. From the beginning, our protest has been peaceful. We want to make it clear that the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front was in no way associated with the organisers of Tuesday’s march to Nabanna. It was not our call,” said Aniket Mahato, one of the leaders of the junior doctors’ front and a postgraduate trainee at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.
“We have no control over what is being done outside our campus. We support all demands for justice but the form has to be peaceful and non-violent,” said Mahato.
Kinjal Nanda, another postgraduate trainee at RG Kar, said their way of demanding justice was very different from what was on display on Tuesday. “Our idea of demanding justice does not include disruption of law and order. Ours is an apolitical and peaceful movement,” said Nanda.
Arnab Mukherjee, a postdoctoral trainee at SSKM Hospital, also condemned
any kind of violence. But he said the protests across the city indicate that there is
pent-up anger over what happened at RG Kar.
“I will not go into the analysis of who was more violent, the police or the organisers of the march to Nabanna. But the protests across the city in the last few days show people are angry at the lack of justice in the RG Kar case,” he said.
The junior doctors’ front, which had on Monday given a call for a rally from Shyambazar to Esplanade on Wednesday, decided against calling it off after the BJP called a 12-hour bandh.
“Our call for a rally on Wednesday preceded the BJP’s call for Bengal bandh. We do not want to give any hint that we are withdrawing our rally because of the bandh. We will go ahead with the rally, though we know some people may find it difficult to join it,” said a junior doctor.
The doctors said their primary demand is that all the persons involved in the rape and murder be arrested. Only one person has so far been arrested. The junior doctors believe more than one person was involved in the crime.
