Kolkata: At Sodpur train station, handwritten and printed posters asking for justice greet you. These posters continue on shopfronts and along walls. An auto driver says that many people have been coming every day to show express empathy and solidarity.
Sodpur, to the north of Kolkata, is where the young trainee doctor lived. On August 9, she was found brutally gang-raped and killed at her workplace, the R.G. Kar Hospital in Kolkata. Outrage has followed, including questions on the depth of alleged institutional involvement.
The sorrow in the neighbourhood where the doctor lived is palpable. Police surround her house, as do reporters.
This reporter could speak to the deceased doctor’s father and aunt (the wife of her father’s brother).
“Of course people from the department [the chest medicine department at R.G. Kar where she worked] is involved in this. We can see there are lots of circles involved,” the father tells The Wire.
He added that no one in the department has been in touch with the family yet.
“It has been eight to nine days but the department has not spoken with us even for once. Under whose watch had I sent my daughter there? The day my daughter died, the principal told me, ‘You need to come here [to his room] to talk to me’,” he says.
‘We had to wait for three hours’
The family also added that even after repeated pleading, authorities did not allow them to see their daughter’s body for nearly three hours from when they were informed of her death.
“To see the dead body of our only daughter we had to wait for three hours. I kept requesting them, I fell to my knees begging to be allowed to see my daughter’s face just once. I told them that I will not interfere with any kind of investigation. I just wanted to see her once, still they told me, ‘We cannot let you go’,” the mother says.
The father asked why the department “has never cooperated with the family till date.”
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“What stopped them? How could anybody from outside know that my daughter was in that room? They did not even feel the need to express mere solidarity with us till date,” he adds.
Citing significant lapses in the ongoing investigation by the Kolkata Police, the Calcutta high court ordered the transfer of the case to Central Bureau of Investigation on August 13. The family had filed a petition with the court before that.
CBI on August 16 questioned Dr Sandip Ghosh, the former principal of the medical college.
“The case is progressing slowly but steadily. We have to keep faith that justice will be achieved,” the father says.
He adds that the protests have left him speechless.
“All the doctors and other who are protesting and demanding justice for my daughter…they all are my sons and daughters. I have lost one but thousands and lakhs are with me now. I am speechless. I do not want to undermine their efforts by thanking them – they are my own sons and daughters,” the father adds.
“People are standing by us from all over the world. We are obliged and this gives us hope that justice will prevail. I demand stringent punishment for whoever has done it,” the father says.
The family says the vandalism at the hospital on the night of August 15 was “horrific” and that they kept a close watch on it through news channels.
“The matter is under investigation and I cannot tell you much, but it was horrific,” the father says.
‘She never wanted us to worry’
The doctor’s mother tries hard to appear a picture of composure. “My daughter used to go to her duties from home. She never told us anything about feeling unsafe, perhaps because she never wanted us to worry,” she says.
She adds that the doctor had been excited for the upcoming Durga Puja festivities – the puja had been taking place at their home for the last two years.
Her aunt’s recalls her studious nature and her ability to keep to herself. “She bought a car just three or four months ago and used to go to work in her car. She wanted to become a gold medalist in MD. She was so brilliant that she got selected to study engineering and medicine, both,” she says.
The aunt says that the doctor last spoke to her mother at 11.15 pm on August 8. “She said she had ordered food for the night and asked her mother to take her medicines before going to sleep. On August 9, at 10.53 am, her mother received a call from Assistant Superintendent stating that your daughter is unwell. He said, ‘Please come,’ and disconnected the call. Didi (the mother) called them back to ask about her daughter. He told her, ‘Am I a doctor? We are taking her to the doctor, the doctor will tell.’ When Didi called them again, they said her daughter has committed suicide.”
One of the doctor’s friends also spoke to The Wire and remembered a person with big dreams. “A number of patients would get free consultation from her. The protest which is going on is not for her, the protest is for us, we deserve justice.”
The cry of justice is in every voice. A boy studying in the second year of college, waiting at the Sodpur station to catch a train, says, “This fight is not the fight of a single family, it is ours. Such outrage and the power of the common man can never go unrecognised.”
Joymala Bagchi is an independent journalist.
