THE incident occurred on Aug 9, 2024, hours after crowds in India and Pakistan cheered on their respective contenders for the javelin gold in Paris. Just like in most places in the subcontinent, on the night of Aug 8, on-duty doctors at the R.G. Kar Hospital in Kolkata in India were also watching Arshad Nadeem and Niraj Chopra compete against each other. A lot was at stake and India was the favourite. We all know what happened in the competition, as Pakistan won its first individual Olympic gold medal.

However, nobody, it seems, knows what happened at the R.G. Kar Hospital. It has been two weeks since the news broke that a trainee doctor who was on duty that night was brutally raped and killed in the early hours of Aug 9. Ever since then, Kolkata and many other Indian cities have been in a state of turmoil. OPD services have been suspended in several hospitals in the country and questions are being raised about how such a brutal crime could have taken place in a fully staffed hospital.

According to news reports, the second-year resident was completing a 36-hour shift at the hospital and was attacked while she was apparently resting in a seminar room. The doctor’s parents were not called until much later. They were first informed in a telephone call that their daughter was very sick. They were later told that their daughter had died by suicide. When the shocked and panicked parents arrived at the hospital, they were prevented from seeing their........

© Dawn