Two years after doctor’s rape-murder, a long night at Kolkata hospital

The old Emergency building is among the few unlit spaces on the 30-acre campus. “You won’t find a dark spot now. CISF jawans are stationed 24×7. In case of any problem, you can approach them immediately,” says the doctor, a first-year resident, as she walks straight past a deserted canopy with worn-out banners and a few posters demanding “bichar chai (we want justice)”.

After the 2024 rape-murder, many junior doctors from across the state, many of them young women like the victim, sat in protest at this ‘Abhaya Manch’ (Photo: Partha Paul)

Two years ago, this site, ‘Abhaya Manch’, named after the pseudonym given by the public and media to the RG Kar rape-murder victim, was the scene of one of the biggest protests Kolkata saw in the aftermath of the crime. For nearly three months, junior doctors from across the state, many of them young women like the victim, sat in protest here, demanding better working conditions and accountability from the Trinamool Congress government.

Many point to the tragedy, and the handling of the protests that followed, as among the many alleged mishandlings that triggered the fall of the TMC  government and that led to the BJP coming to power in the state for the first time.

A bust of ‘Abhaya’ at the RG Kar Medical College & Hospital in Kolkata (Photo: Partha Paul)

Since then at RG Kar, North Kolkata’s key referral government hospital, where thousands once stood demanding accountability, daily life and medical emergencies have taken over. Some of the everyday demands the protesters raised then — rest spaces for doctors in the middle of their long, exhausting shifts and washrooms for women medical professionals — were drowned out, overtaken by dramatic political happenings in the state. Other, more visible changes were effected quickly. And as always, some things moved, others stayed still.

‘It shouldn’t have come to this’

Since the incident two years ago, the hospital’s Emergency services have moved to the Trauma Care Centre building. The glowing red sign on the building shines brightly against the night sky, illuminating an area filled with non-stop activity. Stretchers roll quickly across the pavement, parked ambulances stand ready for the next call, and healthcare workers move swiftly from ward to ward, while yellow-and-green auto-rickshaws carry late-night patients and their relatives into and out of the campus.

Since the incident two years ago, the hospital is back to a state of non-state activity, stretchers rolling quickly across the pavement (Photo: Partha Paul)

At 9 pm, an intern whose family is from Varanasi, starts to walk back to her hostel room after wrapping up her 12-hour shift at Trauma Care. It’s a seven-minute walk, past a few departments, including Gynaecology and the Night Patient Shelter. But she appears relaxed.

“How difficult this walk was,” she says, recalling the years before the 2024 incident. “I was a third-year student when the doctor was killed. This long stretch used to be a dark zone those days, with almost no security. Now, you see movement all around. The security personnel are always on alert; they even remember our faces. A guard is stationed at our hostel, while two armed CISF personnel stand outside the gate, 24/7.”

Personnel of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) had moved in on August 22, 2024, days after the August 9 rape-murder.

According to a senior CISF constable stationed outside Trauma Care, the security grid runs in three eight-hour shifts, involving over 70 personnel per shift. “Maximum deployment during the daytime is concentrated at the entry gates and the Emergency,” he says. “At night, personnel are equally distributed throughout the campus so that the staff feel safe.”

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Outside the Trauma Care Centre, two CISF personnel stand watch. Directly opposite, at the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, three unarmed and two armed CISF personnel maintain a vigilant perimeter. Nearby, a Kolkata Police van stands parked. Every movement across the area is watched closely.

Joya Das, 42, a Group-D sanitation worker who has worked at RG Kar for 15 years, the last four years at the Labour Department, says, “Security has definitely improved so much. Earlier, anyone could enter the wards. Now, the CISF doesn’t let people in without reason.”

Das, who lives in the Belgachia slums nearby, was inside the hospital on the day of the 2024 incident. “I didn’t know the doctor personally, but the incident left all of us disturbed,” she says.

Surveillance across the campus has been scaled up. Over 800 working CCTV cameras now cover nearly every corner, monitored round-the-clock by the CISF from a centralised control room set up inside the campus.

At the night shelter inside the hospital (Photo: Partha Paul)

On the night of the incident, the man accused of the rape-murder, Sanjay Roy, a former Kolkata Police civic volunteer, had allegedly walked into the Emergency building and up to the third floor where the victim was resting. A regular at the police outpost inside the hospital, he would allegedly move freely through every department and building in the complex.

At 8 pm, a woman police officer, who takes over the helpdesk outside the main entry gate, says, “Everyone remembers the incident. But we are vigilant enough now to ensure no unnecessary loitering takes place inside the campus.”

While the heightened security is reassuring, it serves as a constant reminder of why that protection became necessary.

The intern from Varanasi says, “I have at least one 24-hour shift every week. When on night duty, my parents call me from Varanasi every few hours just to ensure I am safe. I still feel a bit uneasy going out for tea, but when I see the guards, it gives me confidence.”

The security presence around the hospital premises has significantly increased. (Photo: Partha Paul)

Yet, she says, it shouldn’t have come down to this. Doctors should not have to face a tragedy and should not need CISF “just to feel secure”, she says.

As the clock strikes 11.30 pm, the hospital’s main gates are partly closed, routing all traffic through a guarded side gate. Between 11:30 pm and 12 am, a joint contingent of armed CISF personnel, administrative staff, and Kolkata Police officers march through the campus corridors, blowing their whistles. “We do this daily to build confidence among the nurses, doctors, and patient families. Troublemakers are deterred by this routine,” says a Kolkata Police officer on duty at the RG Kar outpost.

Dr Md Doyel Nur, a postgraduate trainee who grew up in Murshidabad and completed his MBBS from a private college in Bangladesh, grabs a midnight meal at an eatery near the old Emergency building. “If the CISF weren’t deployed here today, I don’t think women PGTs [postgraduate trainees] would take night-call duties as smoothly or easily,” he says.

‘We are right back at zero’

Despite the security fixes, many point to the broader structural problems that persist, such as the lack of adequate, clean toilets for patients and doctors and spaces where doctors can rest in between shifts.

It’s 7:45 pm and a young medical intern whose family is from Bhagalpur, Bihar, is sitting on the footpath near the principal’s office, holding a lukewarm cup of tea.

“If you are on duty for 48 hours and are on your periods, every time you want to change a pad or pass urine, you have to leave the department, walk about seven minutes all the way to your hostel. Are dedicated, safe washrooms, separate for women doctors, such a big thing that we are asking for?” she says.

Outside the women’s hostel in the hospital premises (Photo: Partha Paul)

She is soon joined by a few other women colleagues who have stepped out of their hostel to join an 8 pm night shift at the Trauma Care Centre.

One of her colleagues admits to a startling daily ritual: “Today, I have a two-hour duty, so I drank enough water. But now I won’t sip any more water. I avoid using the department washrooms, and it’s impossible to walk back to the hostel every time.”

On the ground floor of the Trauma Centre, Emergency Medical Officers, doctors, Group-D staff, and contractual workers share a resting space — it’s also a space where an initial registry is maintained for cases that need police intervention.

One washroom caters to both the General Medicine and Trauma units at the centre. Inside the washroom is a small room that the female staff keep locked for their exclusive use, but it is hardly a substitute for separate washrooms.

The graffiti on the walls of the hospital are a grim reminder of the 2024 rape-murder (Photo: Partha Paul)

Doctors also say that one of the key demands of the protesters — dedicated, fully functional on-call duty rooms split by gender — has gone unaddressed.

Resident doctors frequently work uninterrupted 24- and 48-hour shifts, and in the absence of dedicated resting rooms, they are often forced to take brief moments of rest on vacant hospital beds, makeshift couches, or empty seminar halls. It was during one such exhausting shift that the RG Kar victim, who had sought a few hours of rest in the seminar room late at night, was assaulted and murdered.

During Supreme Court hearings in the rape-murder case, the hospital had committed to creating a safer environment and laid down directives for separate, biometric-secured resting spaces for men and women doctors. But two years on, in the absence of any such separate areas to rest, the staff continue to share the common areas.

Trinnesh Mondal, a second-year Postgraduate Trainee in General Surgery, says, “Every department ought to have a dedicated resting room for doctors. After 4 pm, there is only one washroom left for doctors, and that is shared. The rooms where doctors go to rest are easily accessible — anyone can walk in,” he says.

Dr Nur, the postgraduate trainee from Murshidabad, says that in the Orthopaedics and Surgery departments, male interns often stay back in wards to provide security and support to their female colleagues, because  dedicated, secure doctors’ rooms do not exist. Across departments, patients, doctors, nurses and contractual workers share the same cramped rest spaces and washrooms.

A junior woman doctor says, “One of the key theories surrounding Abhaya’s case is that she was resting with the door open in a common duty room accessible to anyone. Today, many of us feel that our fundamental demands remain unfulfilled. We feel we are right back at zero.”

Crowds swell outside the Trauma Centre, a building which has come under further strain since the Emergency department started operating out of it (Photo: Partha Paul)

Calls and texts to Medical Superintendent and Vice-Principal Dr Saptarshi Chatterjee went unanswered.

The victim’s mother, Ratna Debnath, now a BJP MLA from Panihati, too, refused to comment on the changes at RG Kar.

The West Bengal government recently reopened its review of the criminal case, with newly appointed Health Minister Dr Sharadwat Mukherjee announcing a fresh evaluation into the initial handling of the case.

There are other systemic problems, including the patient burden at RG Kar, that were spoken of in the aftermath of the rape-murder, but remain unresolved.

The hospital’s Outpatient Department sees an average footfall of 4,500 to 6,000 patients every day and maintains a consistent inpatient bed occupancy of around 1,500.

“CCTVs have increased, but the central referral system that was supposed to be activated never materialised. This would have ensured that the pressure of district cases wouldn’t fall entirely on tertiary centres like RG Kar,” says Dr Mondal, the doctor in the General Surgery department.

The closure of the old Emergency building has further strained resources. “The combined pressure of Trauma Care and Emergency now falls entirely on one building,” he says.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior administrative official at RG Kar Hospital reveals that patient care infrastructure, too, faces critical shortfalls.

“The Emergency department handles at least 150 patients daily. In the absence of washrooms, bedridden patients must rely on their families to bring bedpans while ambulatory patients walk 150 metres to a pay-and-use toilet outside,” the official says.

Inside a hospital ward, where doctors struggle with the patient load (Photo: Partha Paul)

As the night wears on, doctors manage overwhelming patient loads in their wards. In the Urology department, a single junior doctor routinely manages between 50 and 60 critical patients per shift.

Around 1 am, a postgraduate trainee from the Labour Department steps out for a brief break during her 24-hour shift. “What you see on the surface is the change. There are CISF personnel everywhere. But our hostel and rest conditions remain in a pathetic state,” she says.

Outside the women’s hostel, a group of interns sit on plastic chairs, sharing momos and biscuits. One of them points to two women CISF officers sitting under a streetlamp and says, “The only real change in the last two years is their deployment. But we constantly wonder — all this security is only at RG Kar. What about the other government medical colleges across Bengal? What is the guarantee that such an incident won’t happen somewhere else? And how long will the CISF stay here?”

A quiet moment

At 12:30 am, near Trauma Care, Payal Aich, 20, a resident of Sodepur, walks nervously through the courtyard, clutching a prescription. Her father, a liver cancer patient, has been rushed to the centre, and the doctors have told her to urgently buy an injection. Approaching a woman CISF officer, Payal asks for directions to the pharmacy.

A patient is brought to the Trauma Centre in a stretcher (Photo: Partha Paul)

The officer points to a dimly lit lane, instructing her to turn left and walk for five minutes. Hesitant, Payal asks, “Could you please accompany me? That lane looks deserted.” The woman constable walks alongside her towards the pharmacy.

The quiet moment reflects the reality of RG Kar today: security personnel filling some gaps, while healthcare workers and patients confront others that remain — and are widening.