MUMBAI: In response to the violent rape and killing of a doctor in Kolkata, eastern India, medical professionals on Saturday, August 17, began a nationwide 24-hour shutdown of non-emergency services.
According to a statement from the Indian Medical Association (IMA), the shutdown, which started at 6 a.m. local time, will prevent access to out-patient consultations and elective medical procedures in the world’s most populous country.
Following the rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor inside her workplace at a medical college in Kolkata last week, doctors across the country protested, drawing comparisons to the infamous gang rape and killing of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi in 2012.
Doctors and women’s organisations have been leading protests, fuelled by their anger at the laws’ inability to stop the increasing wave of violence against women.
In this nation, women make up the bulk of those in professional roles. We have repeatedly requested that they be kept safe,” IMA President RV Asokan told Reuters on Friday. The strike is anticipated to draw in over a million medical professionals.
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