Amid the increasing outrage over the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, doctors and people across India stepped out to carry out protest marches late on Wednesday.
However, the peaceful marches turned violent after miscreants and unruly mob attacked the protesters and doctors, breaking into the RG Kar MCH and vandalising its infrastructure.
Since last week, doctors associations and medical staff have been demanding better safety arrangements, expressing concerns over occurrences of such horrifying incidents.
Following Wednesday's vandalism incident at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, the staff of the establishment reiterated the need for security during working hours.
Nurses working at the state-run hospital told news agency ANI, "We are demanding security during duty hours after yesterday's incident. It is difficult to do our duty in this scenario."
"We need security, we don't want to hamper patient care," the nurses added.
A trainee doctor at the hospital, Hasan Mushtaq, who was present at the site during the mob violence last night noted that they had to ask their female team to leave as the mob broke the barricade and entered the hospital.
"We were to leave at 11 PM for a protest march (from the protesting site). But, there was a group of people outside the campus, they were raising the slogan - 'We want justice', but they weren't moving," Mushtaq told news agency ANI.
He further said, "The mob turned angry and they were trying to enter the campus. Suddenly, they started coming and vandalising. We have already asked our female team to leave and as they leave the mob broke the barricade and entered and we have to escape to save our lives. Even though we are doing everything peacefully, they came from outside and have done this."
WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENED LAST NIGHT?
A former student of the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, Dr Mridul Sarkar, who was also present there last night, narrated the way the mob stormed through the hospital and vandalised the property.
He said that the angry mob broke the emergency gate of the hospital, adding that they entered the Emergency department where patients, nurses and equipments were there.
"The mob destroyed the whole Emergency department. Then, they entered the Trauma and Gyne buildings and threatened the nurses and also doctors. The Police did nothing practically," Sarkar noted.
He said that he had never seen such "hooliganism" inside the hospital, adding that the "ruling party-backed hooligans" entered the hospital to create fear because protests over rape and murder of the trainee doctor were taking place.
He said that they probably intended on creating fear so that the movement doesn't gain any momentum. "The police did not play an adequate role. The mob wanted to go to the floor where the crime took place and they probably might have wanted to ransack that place to destroy the evidence but they could not reach there," Sarkar added.
Meanwhile, Pronoy Das, who is a security guard at the hospital and was on duty last night, said that around 500-1000 people came and broke down the gate around 1 am last night.
"They were too many, we were 10-12 people and the Police. So we were no match," Das added. He said that the mob damaged everything, from computers to medicines and even the CCTV cameras.
