The murder of a 31-year-old doctor at a state-run hospital in Kolkata has highlighted the country’s chronic problem of violence against women.
An Indian court has sentenced a volunteer police officer to life in prison after being found guilty of raping and murdering a junior doctor at the hospital where he worked in the eastern city of Kolkata.
Justice Anirban Das on Monday rejected the death penalty request for Sanjay Roy, saying this was “not the rarest of rare cases” and the 33-year-old convict should spend the rest of his life behind bars. I ordered it not to happen.
Roy has always maintained his innocence and claims he was framed. He can appeal the sentence in a higher court.
On August 9, the bloody body of a 31-year-old trainee doctor was found in a classroom at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata. An autopsy revealed that she had been strangled and sexually assaulted.
Her parents wept inside the courtroom on Monday, saying they were “shocked” by the verdict in the case, which highlights the chronic problem of violence against women in the world’s most populous country, and said her killer was hanged. He said he had hoped to be punished.
“We are shocked by the verdict,” the victim’s father told AFP news agency through tears. “We will continue to fight and we will not let the investigation stop…No matter what happens, we will fight for justice.”
The family members cannot be identified in accordance with Indian laws on reporting incidents of sexual violence.
Federal police investigating the case called for the death penalty for Roy, arguing that the crime was in the “rarest of rare” categories. The state’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) party had also demanded the death penalty for him.
Roy was arrested the day after the crime, and arguments in the case began in November. The assault prompted India’s Supreme Court to set up a national task force to suggest ways to make government hospitals safer.
After the attack, doctors and medical students held protests and rallies across India calling for improved security. Thousands of women also took to the streets to protest, demanding speedy trials in the country’s slow judicial system.
Although the death penalty is imposed in India, it is rarely carried out. The last execution was in March 2020 against four men convicted of gang-raping and murdering a 23-year-old woman on a bus in New Delhi in 2012.
The doctor’s killing has drawn comparisons to the 2012 incident, with doctors at government hospitals calling for increased security.
Activists argue that new sentencing requirements have not deterred rape, and that the number of recorded rapes is increasing. Police recorded 31,516 rape reports in 2022, an increase of 20 per cent from 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
