Women will take to the streets in at least 45 locations across Bengal at midnight on Wednesday to protest against the junior doctor’s rape and murder at R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital here.

According to the organisers in several districts, they will start gathering late on Wednesday night and the protests will continue after midnight on Independence Day, demanding freedom for Bengal’s women.

The slogan of the protest is “Swadhinotar Modhyoraatey, Nari Swadhinotar Jonyo (At the midnight hour of Independence, for women’s liberation)”.

The call — Women, Reclaim the Night — has been widely circulated on social media over the past few days.

“It’s a ghastly, grisly crime. We want justice. This can no longer be tolerated,” said DYFI state secretary Minakshi Mukherjee, after a visit to the parents of the deceased.

A source said the initial call for the midnight protests came mainly from women in Calcutta and the protests were scheduled to take place in three major pockets of the city.

Although the initial call came from various student associations, particularly those Left-leaning, it quickly turned into a wider protest including common people, who took to social media, urging others to join.

By Tuesday morning, similar calls for protests began emerging from districts like Burdwan, Birbhum, Howrah, North 24-Parganas and Hooghly in south Bengal, and Darjeeling, Malda and Raiganj in the north.

Prathama Chatterjee, a primary school teacher from East Burdwan and one of those organising protests in the town of Burdwan, said people from various spheres were responding to the call. “We are inviting everyone, including parents of young children, to join us. It is a question of security for all women who regularly face safety crises, on their journeys and in their workplaces,” said Chatterjee.

“The R.G. Kar incident has shown us that the time to unite against such crimes has come,” she added.

The protesters in Burdwan will start assembling in front of the Curzon Gate at 10.30pm on Wednesday.

A group of Visva-Bharati students and Santiniketan women called for a similar protest and a midnight march on the Ratanpally ground on the campus.

“Although the call has come from women, we, the students, will also be part of it,” said Swapnanil Mukherjee, a PhD scholar in Economics at Visva-Bharati.

The Trinamool Congress questioned the midnight protests, accusing the CPM of planning dramas despite Calcutta being the “safest” in the country, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. “Countless mothers and sisters of Bengal travel from villages to the city for work.... There is no need to stage a midnight assembly (over the security of women),” Trinamool leader Kunal Ghosh wrote on social media.