KOLKATA
\nJunior doctors in many Indian hospitals remained off the job on Sunday demanding swift justice for a colleague who was raped and murdered, despite the end of a 24-hour strike called by the country\u2019s biggest association of doctors.
\nDoctors across the country have held protests, candlelight marches and have refused to see non-emergency patients in the past week after the killing of the 31-year old postgraduate student of chest medicine around the early hours of Aug. 9 in the eastern city of Kolkata.
\nWomen activists say the incident at the British-era R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital has highlighted how women in India continue to suffer despite tougher laws following the gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012.
\n\u201cMy daughter is gone but millions of sons and daughters are now with me,\u201d the father of the victim, who cannot be identified under Indian law, told reporters late on Saturday, referring to the protesting doctors. \u201cThis has given me a lot of strength and I feel we will gain something out of it.\u201d
\nIndia introduced sweeping changes to the criminal justice system, including tougher sentences, after the 2012 attack, but campaigners say little has changed and not enough has been done to deter violence against women.
\nThe Indian Medical Association, whose strike ended at 6 a.m. (0030 GMT) on Sunday, told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that as 60 percent of India\u2019s doctors are women, he needed to intervene to ensure hospital staff were protected by security protocols akin to those at airports.
\n\u201cAll health care professionals deserve peaceful ambience, safety and security at workplace,\u201d it wrote in a letter to Modi.
\n\u2019Could stop emergency services\u2019
\nThe government has urged doctors to return to duty to treat rising cases of dengue and malaria while it sets up a committee to suggest measures to improve protection for health care professionals.
\nMost doctors resumed their usual activities, IMA officials said, although Sunday is generally a holiday for non-emergency cases.
\n\u201cThe doctors are back to their routine,\u201d said Dr. Madan Mohan Paliwal, the IMA head in the most populous state, Uttar Pradesh. \u201cThe next course of action will be decided if the government does not take any strict steps to protect doctors… and this time we could stop emergency services too.\u201d
\nBut the All India Residents and Junior Doctors\u2019 Joint Action Forum said on Saturday it would continue a \u201cnationwide cease-work\u201d with a 72-hour deadline for authorities to conduct a thorough inquiry and make arrests.
\nDr. Prabhas Ranjan Tripathy, additional medical superintendent of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in the eastern city of Bhubaneswar, said junior doctors and interns had not resumed duty.
\n\u201cThe demonstrations are there today too,\u201d he told Reuters. \u201cThere is a lot of pressure on others because manpower is reduced.\u201d
\nR.G. Kar hospital has been rocked by agitation and rallies for more than a week. Police banned the assembly of five or more people to protest around the hospital for a week from Sunday and deployed police in riot gear.
\nBlocking meetings, demonstrations and processions was justified to prevent \u201cbreach of peace, disturbances of the public tranquillity,\u201d Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal said in an order.
\nReuters reporters saw no doctors in their usual protest site around the gates of the hospital on Sunday, as it rained in the area. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KOLKATA Junior doctors in many Indian hospitals remained off the job on Sunday demanding swift justice for a colleague who was raped and murdered, despite the end of a 24-hour strike called by the country\u2019s biggest association of doctors. Doctors across the country have held protests, candlelight marches and have refused to see non-emergency patients […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425715,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-425691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n