New protests over rape and murder of Indian doctor see police use water cannon, tear gas on demonstrators

New Delhi — Thousands of angry students and other protesters marched on the streets of eastern Indian city of Kolkata in the West Bengal state on Tuesday demanding justice for a doctor who was brutally raped and killed earlier this month at a city hospital. 

The police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse protesters who were on their way to the state secretariat building to demand the resignation of Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of the West Bengal state, whom they accuse of mishandling the case.

Indian TV networks aired videos showing protesters climbing barricades that had been placed at the Howrah Bridge, as police used water cannons to stop them.

The brutalized body of a 31-year-old doctor was found with multiple injuries in a lecture hall at the state-run R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata on Aug. 9. The female doctor had gone to the lecture hall to rest during a night shift when she was attacked. An autopsy confirmed sexual assault and multiple injuries sustained before she died, suggesting she resisted and may have been tortured before being murdered.

The Kolkata Police arrested a volunteer member of the force on Aug. 10 and have charged him with rape and murder, but the brutality of the case has drawn nationwide outrage, with medics across the country demanding safer workplaces and citizens demanding safety for women in a country with a shameful record of rape.

Doctors at public hospitals across India refused to work last week, turning away all but emergency patients as part of a national strike over the rape and murder.

Kolkata police had turned the city into a virtual fortress ahead of Tuesday’s planned protest, barricading all roads leading to the state secretariat and deploying 6,000 personnel in full riot gear. The police said they had not given permission for the protest march, and the Trinamool Congress party, which is in power in West Bengal state, alleged that it was an attempt by opposition parties to create unrest in the city.

Police clashed with the protesters Tuesday morning as some of the crowd managed to climb over the barricades, but the demonstrators were stopped before they could reach the state secretariat.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is the opposition in West Bengal, claimed several students were injured Tuesday amid the clashes with the police and called for a new, 12-hour general strike in the state on Wednesday to protest the response.

India’s federal Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI), which was tasked with investigating the rape-murder in Kolkata, subjected the prime suspect, Sanjay Roy, to a polygraph test last week, the results of which were yet to be released Tuesday. Many in the country hope the results will shed new light on whether other people could have been involved in the attack, as has been suggested by the victim’s father.

India reported an average of nearly 90 rapes per day in 2022, according to the most recent data available from the National Crime Records Bureau. Experts believe the real number could be much higher, as many rapes go unreported due to prevailing stigmas around sexual violence and a lack of faith in police investigations. Conviction rates remain low, with many cases becoming mired for years in India’s overwhelmed criminal justice system.