Protesting doctors reject Mamata Banerjee’s plea to end stir; BJP, Congress allege CM threatened medics

Kolkata: The junior doctors protesting against the rape and murder of a young doctor in Kolkata rejected Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s latest appeal to end their cease work stir while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress accused the ruling Trinamool Congress supremo of intimidating the agitating medics.

Soon after, Banerjee while addressing a rally of the Trinamool Congress student wing, urged the protesting junior doctors to return to work. They responded, stating that the cease-work stir in the hospitals across West Bengal would continue till all the demands of the medics would not be fulfilled.

“I have remained sympathetic towards the cause of the doctors from the very beginning since they were seeking justice for their colleague. We did not take any action against them although so many days have passed since the incident. We understand your pain. But please come back to work now since patients are suffering and even dying,” Banerjee said on Wednesday.

More than a fortnight passed since the junior doctors started the cease-work protest to demand justice for the 31-year-old postgraduate trainee medic who was raped and murdered at the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata. With nearly 6,000 junior doctors in over 20 hospitals not working, the healthcare services across the state have been severely affected. The senior doctors had also joined the protest but have since returned to work.

Banerjee said on Wednesday that the state government would not take any actions against the protesting junior doctors. She, however, repeatedly appealed to them to return to work. She noted that the Supreme Court had also appealed to the junior doctors to end their cease work stir. She asked the protesting doctors to keep in mind that the Supreme Court had left it to the state government to decide on taking action against the protesting doctors. “The state government did not take action. If an FIR is filed against anyone, her or his career would be affected, as it would become difficult to obtain passports and visas,” she said.

The protesting junior doctors however said that no attempt to tacitly intimidate them would succeed.

They said that they would not call off the stir because they believed that some of the perpetrators of the crime might be roaming freely and that was why they were not assured about their security.

The Kolkata Police arrested a civic volunteer, a contractual employee of the law-enforcing agency, on August 10, just a day after the 31-year-old postgraduate trainee doctor was found raped and murdered at the seminar room of the Department of Chest Medicine of the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital.

The protesting students, however, alleged that Sanjay Roy, the arrested civic volunteer, might not be the only perpetrator. They also demanded that the state government should suspend the RGKMCH’s former principal Dr Sandip Ghosh, who had allegedly tried to make a cover-up attempt after the body of the young doctor was found early on August 9. The allegations of corruption and financial irregularities at the RGKMCH also came to the fore. They also demanded the resignation of Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal.

“She (Mamata Banerjee) is threatening doctors,” Union Minister and the BJP’s state unit chief, Sukanta Majumdar, said. He promised to provide legal assistance to anyone who would face any issue. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, also criticised the chief minister for intimidating the protesting doctors.