Police lathi-charge protesters during march to mark one year since Kolkata rape and murder
The demonstrators tried to scale the barricades at Park Street during their march to the West Bengal secretariat.
The Kolkata Police on Saturday lathi charged protesters during a march to the West Bengal secretariat to mark one year since the rape and murder of a doctor inside the state-run RG Kar Hospital, The Hindu reported.
The doctor’s parents alleged that they were assaulted by police personnel. “They also broke my bangles,” her mother was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
There were tensions in the Park Street area as the protesters tried to scale the barricades. The police had urged the protesters not to walk beyond an assembly point at the Rani Rashmoni Road, PTI reported.
The doctor’s father alleged that the police had stopped them from joining the rally despite a court permission for the march, NDTV reported.
On August 9, 2024, a 31-year-old trainee doctor was found dead on the premises of the hospital. The incident had sparked protests across the country.
Sanjoy Roy, who was convicted of the doctor’s rape and murder, was sentenced him to life imprisonment in January.
In February, the Calcutta High Court admitted an appeal filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation seeking a death sentence for Roy.
#WATCH | Kolkata | West Bengal Police deploys lathi charge at protestors during the 'Nabanna Abhiyan' rally. The rally has been called to mark the one-year anniversary of the RG Kar Medical College rape and murder. pic.twitter.com/F3jtMFmXk3
— ANI (@ANI) August 9, 2025
On Saturday, Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari and other Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs had also joined the protest, The Hindu reported. Adhikari claimed that he was among the more than 100 protesters who were allegedly injured in the lathi charge.
After the incident of rape and murder came to light, the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front led protests for several weeks demanding the resignation of senior officials and an end to the “threat culture” in the state’s medical centres.
Healthcare services across West Bengal were impacted for several weeks as protesting doctors at state-run hospitals held a strike against the incident.
The Central Bureau of Investigation is separately looking into alleged tampering of evidence in the case, and alleged corruption at the medical facility. The persons accused in the case include the hospital’s former principal Sandip Ghosh and an ex-officer-in-charge of the Tala police station, among others.
