KOLKATA: Kolkata Police fired teargas shells and water cannon to disperse hundreds of protesters marching in the city today in the wake of a gruesome rape and murder of a trainee doctor.
According to details, the protesters led by university students broke through the iron barricades set up on the route of their march to the West Bengal state secretariat, resulting in a baton charge by the police, who had earlier declared the protest illegal.
The August 9 attack on the 31-year-old doctor at Kolkata’s state-run R.G. Kar Medical College has caused outrage across India, with campaigners saying women continue to suffer from high levels of sexual violence in the country. Junior doctors have refused to see non-emergency patients in many parts of India since the incident, as they launched protests demanding justice for the victim and greater safety for women at hospitals.
India’s Supreme Court has created a hospital safety task force and has requested protesting doctors return to work, but some have refused to budge, including in West Bengal.
On Tuesday, more than 5,000 policemen were deployed in Kolkata and the neighboring city of Howrah, a senior officer said, as the protests led by some university students took off, demanding the resignation of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
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