No Country For Women: Outrage In Uttarakhand As Nurse Raped And Killed

Are doctors really safe in India? This question must be raised after reading the following cases. In a shocking incident, a nurse was raped and murdered while she was returning after her duty from a private hospital. The incident happened on July 30 at the border of Uttrakhand and Uttar Pradesh. The nurse's body was found on August 8 in an empty plot which was 1.5 km away from her residence on Kashipur Road in Uttar Pradesh's Bilaspur.

As per the reports, the nurse was returning from the hospital and took an e-rickshaw from Indra Chowk in Rudrapur. However, she didn't return to her apartment where she lived with her 11-year-old daughter. This was captured in the CCTV posed in these areas. 

How was the culprit found?

When the nurse didn't return home, her sister filed a missing complaint. The police found her body in an empty plot in Dibdiba village after eight days of the incident. The body was sent for post-mortem which revealed that the nurse was raped. 

Uttar Pradesh Police formed a team to search for the culprit. He was nabbed n Rajasthan using the location of the nurse's mobile. The culprit, Dharmendra, belongs to UP's Bareilly. The nurse's mobile and Rs 3000 were found with Dharmendra. 

What happened on the day of the incident?

On the day of the incident, Dharmendra was drunk and found the nurse, he followed her and attacked her while she was about to reach her apartment. Dharmendra dragged her to the bushes nearby and raped her. 

"He dragged her to the nearby bushes. Raped and strangled her using her scarf," Manjunath TC, Senior Superintendent of Police, Udham Singh Nagar told the media. 

Another similar incident

In another shocking incident, a 23-year-old man attempted to molest a surgeon at Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) on August 14. Around 8:30 pm, the accused, Mayank Galar of Madhya Pradesh’s Hoshangabad, tried to molest the surgeon while she was in the two-wheeler sparkling slot. 

He allegedly undressed himself to molest the doctor. But she pushed Mayank down and ran towards her hostel. The accused also fled the spot but was nabbed when he visited the casualty around 1 am.

Medical students and surgeons staged protests 

The incident has created an outrage among the in-house surgeons and PG students. The in-house surgeons gathered on the campus and demanded legal action. They said that they would go back to their hostels only when the Resident Medical Officer promised that legal action would be taken against the accused.

On the day when India was celebrating Independence Day, the in-house surgeons and postgraduate medical students protested in front of administrative block condemning the molestation attempt. 

Demands of the protests

They also demanded security guards at night, proper lighting, installation of CCTV cameras and police patrol on the campus during the night.

One of the in-house surgeons told the media, “Most of the surveillance cameras are defunct, and many places on the campus are not well-lit at night. Of the 150 house surgeons, 80 are women, and they do not have separate restrooms barring the ones in their hostel and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology."

CMCH Dean A. Nirmala discussed with the surgeons and promised them to improve the security. She told media that although the campus already has good security, she will add more to it.

She said, “The Public Works Department has informed that restrooms for women house surgeons would be readied soon. There are nearly 200 closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, and the defunct ones would be fixed. More lights would be fixed on the campus." 

As per the reports, Mayank was roaming at the railway station when he reached the hospital campus. He is now under police custody with Section 74 of BNS (assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and Section 4 (penalty for harassment of women) of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Woman Actimposed on him.