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Crime

India sets up doctors' panel on workplace safety after rape, murder

Activists say trainee's killing highlights how women still suffer sexual violence

A woman passes a closed gate at the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata on Aug. 19.   © Reuters

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -- India's Supreme Court ordered on Tuesday the setting up of a national task force of doctors to make recommendations on safety at their workplaces, days after the rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor sparked nationwide protests.

The court also asked the federal police to submit a report on Thursday on the status of its investigation into the Aug. 9 murder of the trainee doctor at a state-run hospital in the eastern city of Kolkata.

Doctors across the country have held protests and refused to see nonemergency patients following the crime as part of their actions demanding safer workplaces and a swift criminal probe.

A police volunteer has been arrested and charged with the crime. Activists for women say it has highlighted how women in India continue to suffer from sexual violence despite tougher laws brought in after the 2012 gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi.

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