As the medical fraternity across the country is on war path protesting the rape and murder of their colleague in Kolkata's RG Kar Medical College, the father of the victim said all youngsters on the streets seeking justice to his late daughter are his children. He extended his solidarity to the ongoing protests by the medical professionals.
"All the people who are protesting on the streets are like my sons and daughters. My daughter has passed away but crores of children are standing with me now... All those who are protesting, we are with them," he told the press in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas on Friday.
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Resident doctors in several cities, including those in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Gujarat held protest marches condemning the incident.
The 31-year-old PG student was allegedly raped and murdered by a Kolkata Police civil volunteer attached to the RG Kar Medical College outpost. He was asleep at a seminar hall after watching Neeraj Chopra's Olympic javelin event when she was attacked by the accused Sanjay Roy, 33. CCTV footage confirmed his presence in the building where the crime took place and a piece of his headphone was recovered from the scene. He reportedly confessed to having killed the doctor after sexually assaulting her.
Confirming that he spoke with the CBI officials probing the case, the father of the late doctor also levelled allegations against RG Kar Medical College Hospital. "I spoke to the officials of CBI yesterday but I cannot say anything else since the matter is subjudice... She had to face some problems in college, the entire department was a suspect," he said.
Recollecting his late daughter's final conversation with the family, he said, "My daughter left for duty at around 8:10 am on that day. She was on OPD and last spoke to her mother at around 11:15 PM. In the morning when my wife was calling her, her phone was ringing but no one picked up, by that time my daughter died. The matter of concern is that from 3 AM to 10 AM, nobody needed her, despite she was an on-duty doctor," he said.
ALSO READ | ‘Absolute failure of state machinery; will shut down hospital’: Calcutta HC on RG Kar Hospital vandalism
Amidst the ongoing protests in front of Kolkata's state-run hospital, a group of people entered the hospital and vandalised the emergency department, nursing unit and medicine store in the early hours of Thursday.
The mob also damaged CCTV cameras at the state-run health facility and ransacked a stage where junior doctors had been demonstrating against the alleged rape and murder of the doctor there and demanding security at their workplace.