12-hour duty, special safety app: Jittery Mamata govt's new measures in wake of Kolkata hospital rape-murder

Kolkata: In the wake of the outrage over the rape and murder of a young doctor at a state-run hospital in Kolkata, the government of West Bengal on Saturday introduced 17 new initiatives to ensure the safety of women, including avoiding making them work during night hours as far as possible.

The initiatives included the creation of ‘Ratri Sathi (night buddy)’, a special security force comprising police personnel and private security guards, to ensure the safety and security of women working during night hours. An app, which will also be called ‘Ratri Sathi’, will be launched so that the women can quickly seek help in case they find themselves in danger. Besides, the women will not be asked to work during night hours wherever and as far as possible. Not only the government institutions but the private sector employers will also be asked to adhere to the ‘Ratri Sathi’ guidelines.

The government finalized the 17 new steps at a meeting held at the state secretariat on Saturday. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee virtually chaired the meeting, which was attended by the top bureaucrats of the state government and the senior police officers.

Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress government found itself in a tight spot after the rape and murder of the young physician at the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9 triggered not only a ‘cease work’ protest by the junior doctors across the state and beyond but also widespread outrage.

The victim was on night duty at the hospital and went to rest in the seminar hall of the Department of Chest Medicine on the third floor. Her almost nude body with multiple injuries was found in the seminar hall early next morning.

The new initiative included imposing a complete stop to making female doctors work for more than 12 hours, and ensuring the availability of toilets and places to take rest on every floor.

Thousands of women took to the streets in the late hours of August 14 and the early hours of August 15 in a “Reclaim the Night” protest, demanding justice for the deceased doctor. A large number of men also joined them across the state. The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) launched a campaign against the ruling Trinamool Congress, demanding its supremo’s resignation from the office of the chief minister.

The Trinamool Congress also launched a counter-campaign across the state, accusing the CPI(M) and the BJP of making attempts to trigger unrest and destabilise its government.