Indians in 160 cities in 30 countries across the world raised their voices to demand justice for the slain doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. All of them chose the same local time — 5pm.

“We started in Tokyo and ended in San Diego, California,” said Dipti Jain, a geriatric medicine specialist in Brighton, UK, who was a global co-ordinator for the protest.

The idea germinated following the success of a pan-UK protest that took place on August 22.

“Word was coming in of such protests taking place sporadically, led by the local Bengali communities everywhere. Since I have a database from earlier events, I thought of reaching out so that a united voice could be raised,” said Jain, a graduate from Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital.

The response, she said, was so spontaneous that even while she was driving to the London protest site, in front of the Gandhi statue at Parliament Square, she could connect with people in two more countries — Botswana and Congo.

“They had barely an hour or two in hand, yet they agreed to join at 5pm.”

In Guadalajara, Mexico, about 70 people gathered at Parqe Metropolitano.

“We chanted slogans, shared our feelings and sang ‘Karar oi louho kopat’ in chorus. I grew up in what was the safest city in India in the 1980s. When my sister travels to Delhi, we warn her to stay connected if she is traveling at night by cab. What has happened was unthinkable so long in Calcutta,” Ipsita Saha, a software engineer, said.

At Perth, in Western Australia, the local Bengalis had kept a vigil earlier at Kings Park and Botanic Garden. “This time, the call came with so little time in hand that we could not get permission. So we split in three groups and gathered in local parks. No permission is needed if a gathering has less than 50 people,” said Sushmita Guha, the president of the Bengali Association of Western Australia.

Protests happened in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide as well, she said¸ recalling how she would take a taxi to reach her Birati home at midnight from south Calcutta.

In Zambia, the protest was organised by the Lusaka Bengali Community Zambia Foundation. “We have to keep up the pressure globally so that the truth cannot be suppressed. This is a war for the educated middle class to regain their foothold as no government seems to care for them,” said Sanjib Chakraborty, an alumnus of South Point School.

A yard next to a medical centre was chosen as the venue as the crime took place in a hospital.

“An elderly couple who were the first Bengali settlers in Zambia 54 years ago addressed us. We recited Tagore’s ‘Chitto jetha bhoy sunyo’ and sang ‘We shall overcome’,” he said, adding that protests were held in Johannesburg, Dar es Salam, Lagos and Congo as well.

In Zurich, a protest had taken place on August 29 at a public place at Stadthausanlage. “This time, we rented a room in Oerlikon, at the city centre, as gatherings are not allowed in the weekend,” said Manisha Dey, adding that her father, a 1975 RG Kar graduate, was helping the junior doctors with other ex-students.

The protesters are already looking ahead. “At our Redmond Downtown Park meet, we, the protesters in Seattle, decided to petition the Indian consulate if this case drags. Accountability must be fixed from top to bottom. Even the security guard must have lapsed in his duty that night. Also at home, we need to put an end to gender disparity in the way children are raised. This is a broader cultural issue,” said Supurna Ghosh, who remembers playing in the RG Kar courtyard in her school days as the then-resident medical officer was a family friend.

A drug developer in the pharmaceutical sector, Ghosh shudders at the thought of a doctor selling biomedical waste, referring to one of the allegations against former RG Kar principal Sandip Ghosh.

Jain, the chairperson of the Medicos Women Charity Organisation, an organisation of about 150 women doctors from India in the UK, has proposed the formation of a global working committee to support the movement, not just to bring justice in this case but to bring in systemic changes in healthcare back home.