Kolkata: The protest by the junior doctors in West Bengal over the ghastly rape and murder of a junior doctor of R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in August this year started with the sole intention to know and reveal what exactly happened with their colleague within the hospital premises last month, a representative of West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front (WBJDF) said at the mass convention organised by it here on Saturday.
“We just wanted to know what exactly happened within the R.G. Kar premises that night. In fact, our movement on this issue started with that thought only. That’s is why we organised protest demonstrations at several places including the headquarters of Kolkata Police at Lalbazar,” said Aniket Mahato, a leading face of the movement and representative of the WBJDF, the umbrella body of the junior doctors spearheading the movement on the rape and murder issue.
Debashish Halder, another face of the movement said that although the junior doctors protesting against the rape & murder issue are coming across opposition to carry out their movement, they will not succumb to such pressures.
“Common people from different professions have come to attend this mass convention. For us, this is a mass movement, where each protester is a leader. The movement involves the mass. In the coming days, there will be many protest programmes. Out movement has not stopped with the withdrawal of the hunger strike. Our next mass agitation will be on November 9,” he said.
At the mass convention on Saturday, a documentary depicting the summary of the protest programmes organised by the junior doctors since August 9 – when in the morning, the body of the victim junior doctor was discovered at the seminar hall within the R.G. Kar premises – was screened.
Meanwhile, a rival group of junior doctors of R.G. Kar who were recently suspended by the college council following charges of pursuing the “threat culture” within the medical college premises, on Saturday, announced the floating of a counter-organisation of junior doctors, christened the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Association (WBJDA).
They claimed that actually, they were victims of “threat culture” by a group of their fellows who were the leading faces of the movement on the rape and murder issue. Although the college council announced their suspension earlier this month, recently a single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court stayed the resolution of the council in the matter and observed that only the state government can take a decision on this issue.
(IANS)
