NEW DELHI: Activists from the women’s wing of the BJP gathered at various police stations in West Bengal on Monday to protest alleged lapses in the investigation into the rape and murder of a doctor at RG Kar hospital last month.
The protesters, led by BJP leaders Agnimitra Paul and Locket Chatterjee, claimed that police stations had lost their “purity” due to alleged misconduct by police personnel.
The protesters symbolically “cleansed” the stations by sprinkling holy water from the Ganga River and applying cow dung with broomsticks. Paul said, “We have come to the police station at Behala in south Kolkata as a symbolic protest to purify it.”
She questioned the police’s actions during the investigation, asking, “Where was the police force when the body of the doctor was hastily cremated and a mismatch was noticed in the timings of the FIR and post-mortem examination?”
The doctor was allegedly raped and murdered at R G Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is investigating the case and has arrested three individuals, including former principal Sandip Ghosh and a policeman.
Chatterjee led another protest in front of the DC north office at Maniktala in northern Kolkata, where she breached police barricades and applied cow dung with broomsticks. Opposition parties, including the BJP, have been criticizing the police for alleged shortcomings in their initial investigation before the case was handed over to the CBI.
(The victim’s identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme court directives on cases related to sexual assault)