The government on Saturday said a committee will be formed to propose safety measures for healthcare professionals.
The Union health ministry said representatives of all stakeholders, including the state governments, will be invited to share their suggestions with the committee as it urged the doctors to resume their duties in the larger public interest and in view of the rising number of dengue and malaria cases.
Representatives of the Federation of Resident Doctors’ Association (FORDA), IMA and resident doctors’ associations of government medical colleges and hospitals of Delhi met the Union health minister in the wake of the Kolkata incident.
Reacting to the development, the IMA said it is studying the statement released by the health ministry assuring doctors of all possible efforts to ensure their safety and offering to form a committee to suggest measures for the same.
The IMA said it will respond to it after careful consideration of all aspects and consultations with its state branches.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said everyone was concerned about the rape and murder of the doctor in Kolkata and not just the healthcare fraternity.
Rijiju was speaking to reporters at the Bhubaneswar airport in Odisha.
In West Bengal, the epicentre of the protest, the former principal of R G Kar Medical College and Hospital Dr Sandip Ghosh appeared before the CBI for questioning for the second consecutive day on Saturday in connection with the horrific incident
The body of the doctor was found in a seminar hall of the state-run hospital on August 9.
Ghosh, sources said, was initially questioned on the hospital’s response to the death of the victim. He was seen re-entering the CBI office at the CGO complex in Salt Lake with a bunch of papers and files a little before 10.30 am on Saturday, and hadn’t left the premises till reports last received.
Separate teams of the central investigating agency also reached the crime scene at the RG Kar hospital and the barrack of the Kolkata Police’s Armed Forces fourth battalion in Salt Lake, where the arrested prime accused, civic volunteer Sanjay Roy, was putting up.
At RG Kar hospital, the investigators collected samples and sent those to the Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory for testing, an officer said.
“At the KP barrack, the team spoke to the policemen who are staying there and enquired about the accused’s movements on Friday morning. They took the details of when Roy returned to the barrack and what he did after reaching there,” he said.
Later, the same team reached Sambhunath Pandit Street in South Kolkata, Roy’s rented residence, and spoke to his mother about his recent whereabouts and recorded her written statement, the officer said.
During his first round of questioning, the former principal was asked about his first reaction after getting the news of the doctor’s death, who he instructed to inform the family and who contacted the police, he said.
CBI officials enquired about the weekly roster of the chest medicine department where the victim was seen to be put on duty for a gruelling 36 hours at a stretch or, at times, even 48 hours, the officer said.
“Some of his answers were convoluted. He was grilled till early Saturday and then allowed to leave for home,” the officer told PTI.
In an evening development, the Mamata Banerjee government was learnt to have cancelled its bulk transfer order of 43 doctors and 190 female health assistants issued by the state health department on August 16 in the wake of fresh protests that were registered by a section of the agitating doctors.
While the government had initially called the transfers “routine” and insisted that most doctors were being moved from the periphery regions to the vicinity of Kolkata, the United Doctors Front Association, a nation-wide body of doctors, called the move “unjust” and an “attempt to silence demands for justice and security”.
State health secretary N S Nigam told reporters, “The transfer order was issued sometime back. We cancelled it today because had the transfers been brought to effect, it would have further disrupted the services these doctors were providing to patients under the current situation. There’s no controversy here.”
The Kolkata Police, which is probing the large-scale vandalism at R G Kar hospital in the early hours of August 15, meanwhile, confirmed that the arrest figure in connection with the violence currently stands at 30.
The police were learnt to have summoned for questioning several Left leaders, including DYFI’s Bengal secretary Minakshi Mukherjee, who led a significantly large group of protestors during the women’s ‘Reclaim the Night’ programme outside the hospital premises at the time of the violence.
“Of course we will meet the police. But before that we have to consult our lawyers,” Mukherjee said. PTI
