India’s Supreme Court has set up a national task force of doctors to make recommendations on workplace safety following the rape and murder of a trainee medic at a state hospital that prompted nationwide protests.
The court, which took up the case on its own, said on Tuesday that the doctors’ panel was being established to frame guidelines for the safety and protection of medical workers across the country.
It directed the task force to submit an interim report within three weeks and a final report within two months.
India has been outraged by the 31-year-old trainee’s assault and killing inside a state-run hospital in the eastern city of Kolkata, the crime again highlighting sexual violence against women in the country. Her bloodied and brutalised body was found on August 9.
“Protecting safety of doctors and women doctors is a matter of national interest and principle of equality. The nation cannot await [for] another rape for it to take some steps,” Chief Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud said.
“If women cannot go to a place of work and be safe, then we are denying them the basic conditions of equality,” said Chandrachud, who headed a three-judge bench of the court.
The court also asked federal police to submit a report on Thursday on the status of its investigation into the woman’s murder at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.
It additionally ordered a federal paramilitary force to provide security at the Kolkata hospital after women doctors said they did not feel safe after the crime and subsequent vandalisation of the facility by unidentified men.
Doctors and healthcare workers in India have held protests and candlelight vigils and have also been refusing to see nonemergency patients in their demand for a swift criminal investigation. The Supreme Court requested all doctors to return to work.
A police volunteer, who was tasked with helping police personnel and their families with hospital admissions when needed, has been arrested and charged with the crime.
The doctors were joined in their protests by an enraged citizenry, with thousands of women and men marching in Kolkata and cities across the country demanding justice and better safety measures in hospitals.
The Indian Medical Association (IMA), the biggest grouping of doctors in the country with 400,000 members, held a 24-hour strike over the weekend and called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to introduce more stringent protections, given that 60 percent of India’s doctors are women.
Activists say the latest incident has shown how women in India continue to face sexual violence despite tougher laws introduced after the 2012 gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a bus in New Delhi.
That attack had spurred politicians to order harsher penalties for such crimes and set up fast-track courts dedicated to rape cases. The government also introduced the death penalty for repeat offenders.
However, despite tougher legislation, sexual violence remains pervasive in India.
In 2022, the latest year for which records are available, police recorded 31,516 reports of rape – a 20 percent jump from 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
