Kolkata rape-murder case: Protesting doctors in West Bengal to continue ceasework

Kolkata: Agitating junior doctors at state-run hospitals in West Bengal on Thursday said they will continue their ceasework to protest against the alleged rape and murder of a postgraduate trainee at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital earlier this month.

"We have decided to continue our ceasework because justice is yet to be delivered. The Supreme Court has avoided the justice part. We must not forget that getting justice for our sister is our prime goal," one of the protesting doctors told PTI.

Earlier in the day, making an impassioned appeal to the agitating doctors across the country, the apex court urged them to get back to work, saying "justice and medicine" cannot be stopped. It also directed no coercive action against them.

Healthcare services remained affected at state-run hospitals in West Bengal on Thursday, as junior doctors continued their stir for the 14th consecutive day.

The ceasework continued even as the state government transferred three officials of the RG Kar hospital, and cancelled the posting of its former principal Sandip Ghosh to the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital (CNMC).

The three senior officials of the health facility have been transferred to various state-run hospitals.

A tough-talking Supreme Court on Thursday tore into the Kolkata Police over the delay in registering the unnatural death of the woman doctor, calling it "extremely disturbing", and questioned the sequence of events and the timing of its procedural formalities.

The body of the trainee doctor was found with injury marks in a seminar room of the RG Kar hospital on August 9. The incident has triggered nationwide protests.