Junior doctors, common people take out torch rally to CBI office

Kolkata: Junior doctors, accompanied by thousands of common people, conducted a torch rally to the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) Salt Lake office on Wednesday evening, demanding a quick and logical conclusion of the central agency probe in the ghastly rape and murder of a junior doctor of R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in Kolkata in August.

The rally started in front of the office of the West Bengal Medical Council, also at Salt Lake and ended at the Central Government Office (CGO) complex which houses the office of the CBI’s special crime unit.

“The point from where we started our rally was the root of all the corruption in the medical services in the state. The point where our rally ended was the place from where the investigation in the rape and murder is being conducted. That is why we chose these two points,” said a representative of the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front (WBJDF), the umbrella body of the junior doctor spearheading the movement on the rape and murder issue.

Another WBJDF representative said that it would be wrong to think that withdrawal of the fast-unto-death demonstration earlier in the month was the end of the movement by the junior doctors.

“We will continue with the movement. Our protest march to the CBI office today reflected our grievances about the first charge sheet of the central agency where only civic volunteer Sanjay Roy has been identified as the sole prime accused in the rape and murder case. We still believe that such a ghastly rape and murder cannot be the handiwork of one,” another WBHJDF representative said.

“Tomorrow is Kali Puja and Diwali, the festival of lights. But we observed Diwali today through this torch rally,” she added.

Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh said that the junior doctors should have organised this “march to CBI office” much before. “Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had been voicing for justice for the victim since the very beginning. She had been calling for capital punishment for the convict. Now, the CBI is in charge of the investigation and hence the protest rally to CBI office should have been conducted much before,” he said.