On secure RG Kar campus, doctors and nurses rue what they lacked a year ago
Times of India | 10 August 2025
Kolkata: The deployment of CISF personnel and police force was conspicuously beefed up on the campus of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital when the clock struck 3 am on Saturday — around the time when a horrific crime had occurred in the emergency building's third-floor seminar room a year ago.
The female doctors and nurses, while passing by the locked seminar room — where the body of the trainee doctor was found on the morning of Aug 9 last year — still felt haunted as they recounted the crime at the emergency building. Their only regret was that if the same vigilance had been there a year ago, the postgraduate trainee doctor would not have suffered such a "painful death" on duty.
"In the early hours of Aug 9 in 2024, only one guard used to sit near the entrance of the emergency building, and the lapses in security resulted in the gruesome incident, which we learned about in the morning. While on night shift around the same time on the same day in 2025, we have a sense of safety with the deployment of CISF and cops outside the ward and on the campus," said Anisha Basu, a house staff member of the emergency ward. "If the same vigilance was there, Abhaya could have been saved," Basu rued.
There was rush of patients inside the trauma care unit and the emergency building, guarded by CISF and cops, including women personnel, in the dead of night when protesting doctors, flanked by members of ‘Abhaya Mancha' and some locals, reclaimed the night till 4 am at Shyambazar 5-Point Crossing.
Between 12 am and 2 am, both the cops and CISF personnel kept a watch over the campus. Five cops and three CISF men were spotted at the entrance gate, while two other CISF personnel were found checking the cards of patients' kin before allowing them entry to the emergency and trauma care unit. Around 3 am, the number of CISF and cops guarding the main gate swelled to 10, keeping a strict watch on the movement of people.
Ankita Haldar, a Haltu resident, was was found standing in front of the ‘Cry of the Hour', a symbolic statue for Abhaya on the RG Kar campus. The ‘Abhaya Mancha' located near the hospital's entrance gate was empty throughout the night as protesters were at Shyambazar.
A woman doctor walked out of the emergency ward and said: "We can now take a nap there without anxiety or feeling unsafe. The deployment has been increased further tonight. Why did we not have this security arrangement last year? This could have prevented the incident.
"The same question was raised by a nurse. "The CISF deployment is temporary, and we are worried about what would happen if they are withdrawn," she said.
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