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Hrithik Roshan, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor Khan.
Credit: Reuters and PTI Photos
New Delhi: Bollywood stars Hrithik Roshan, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Kriti Sanon have demanded justice in the rape and murder of a postgraduate trainee physician in Kolkata, while expressing solidarity with doctors protesting over the case.
The body of the postgraduate trainee doctor was found in the R G Kar Medical College on August 9. She was allegedly raped and murdered while on duty, an incident that has sparked protests by doctors and medical students across the country.
In a post on social media platform X on Thursday evening, Hrithik said Indian society has a long way to go before every citizen feels "equally safe".
"Yes we need to evolve into a society where we ALL feel equally safe. But that is going to take decades. It’s going to hopefully happen with sensitizing and empowering our sons and daughters. The next generations will be better. We will get there. Eventually. But what in the interim? "Right now justice would be to put a hard stop to such atrocities. And the only way to do that is a punishment so harsh that it scares the living daylights out of such perpetrators. That’s what we need. Perhaps?" he wrote.
Hrithik also condemned the vandalism and attack on protesting doctors at the Kolkata hospital on Wednesday night.
"I stand with the victim's family in seeking justice for their daughter and I stand with all the Doctors that were attacked last night," he added.
Alia said things have not changed much in the country since the brutal gangrape of a physiotherapy intern in Delhi in 2012 that also led to nationwide protests.
"Another brutal rape. Another day of realisation that women are not safe, anywhere. Another horrific atrocity to remind us that it's been over a decade since the Nirbhaya tragedy, but still nothing much has changed," she said in a post on Instagram.
Kareena also posted on Instagram and said, "12 years later, the same story, the same protest. But we are still waiting for change.” In a post on her Instagram Stories, filmmaker Zoya Akhtar wrote, "Still waiting on the day all women can be independent and safe" Her brother, filmmaker-actor Farhan Akhtar, posted a poem on Instagram in memory of the victim.
"Speak for me, when I am gone, of shattered dreams and unfinished songs... Speak of empty canvases, of poems half written, of stillborn promises the death of a kitten... Speak of homes on fire, speak of decaying desire, of unrealised ambition, a cause stripped of fruition... Speak for me when I am gone, speak for me when I am gone..." he posted on Instagram.
Sara Ali Khan shared a post on her Instagram story and demanded "justice for women".
Priyanka Chopra Jonas reposted a photo by a British news outlet from a protest site. The picture showed a protestor holding a banner that read, "Who will speak for her if you don't?” Actor Vijay Varma said, "At the least... protect our protectors." Twinkle Khanna shared a picture on Instagram with the text that stated, “Fifty years on this planet, in this country, and I am teaching my daughter the same things I was taught as a child. Don't go alone - to the park, to school, to the beach.” In her post, Kriti Sanon said it breaks her heart to see the "terrifying reality that women are still not safe in their own country".
"While we celebrate our 78th year of Independence and feel proud on how far we've come as a country globally... There is absolutely no fear in the people who commit these inhumane acts. And even today, its the woman being blamed for being a victim!!! "Unless there is faster justice, severe punishments and more importantly better upbringing, nothing is gonna change. Are we really FREE when our basic safety is in question??" the actor said.
In her Independence Day message on Instagram, Pednekar said she hopes for independence from "acts of violence against women, from heinous acts of sexual assault, from gross discrimination and from toxic masculinity that has lead oppressors to the most barbaric crimes without fear".
She accompanied the post with a note in which she said violence against women has not stopped for generations.
"Something that should send shivers down our spines doesn't even get a reaction from us cause it's become a regular occurrence. We should be ashamed. This is our collective failure. Our culture worships Shakti, remember that. Stricter laws. Make an example of those perpetrators. Let there be fear of the law," she said.
Indo-Canadian singer expressed his anger over the incident through a Punjabi song dedicated to the victim: "She was not safe in a place where everyone knew her. Today we all ask you, is it a curse to be born a girl in this world?" The probe into the death of the trainee doctor was transferred from the Kolkata Police to the CBI on orders of the Calcutta High Court. A civic volunteer has been arrested in connection with the crime.