RG Kar: Mamata removes Police Commissioner, top health officials; medics rejoice 'victory'
Kolkata/New Delhi (PTI): Accepting the bulk of the five-point charter of demand placed by the agitating junior doctors, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced her decision to transfer a section of Kolkata Police and the state health department top brass, including CP Vineet Goyal, from their respective positions.
Banerjee also announced the removal of the Director of Medical Education (DME) and the Director of Health Services (DHS) besides the Deputy Commissioner (North Division) who allegedly offered money to the parents of the RG Kar victim.
“We will announce the name of the new police commissioner after 4 pm on Tuesday after the scheduled hearing in Supreme Court gets over,” the chief minister said at the stroke of midnight after concluding her meeting with the agitating junior doctors at her Kalighat residence, barely hours ahead of the scheduled Supreme Court hearing on the RG Kar hospital matter.
The decisions were formalised in the minutes of the meeting which was signed by Chief Secretary Manoj Pant and countersigned by the delegation of 42 doctors who participated in the talks to end the RG Kar hospital deadlock.
The agitating doctors are on ‘cease work’ across the state for 38 days since the gruesome alleged rape and murder of the postgraduate intern at RG Kar hospital came to light on August 9, crippling state-run healthcare delivery.
“We have accepted almost all demands of the doctors. Keeping in mind the plight of the common people, we did the best we could. I now appeal to the doctors to return to work,” Banerjee said, confirming no disciplinary action would be taken against the agitating doctors.
Deeming the decisions as “the state bowing its head before the pressure of a movement and a “victory of the masses”, the doctors, however, said they would continue their protests till “the words get converted into concrete action”.
“We will decide on what our next step would be after the hearing at the Apex court and after we confirm the government issuing those transfer orders it has promised,” announced Dr Debasish Halder, one of the leaders, from the sit-in before Swasthya Bhawan which is continuing for a week amid inclement weather.
“While the CM has accepted our demand to remove the CP, DC (North), the DHS and DME, she is yet to agree on removing the principal secretary of the health department or the DC (Central). The discussions on the operating threat syndicate in hospitals and the thriving corruption racket remain incomplete. We only have verbal assurances on those matters so far. So our fight is far from over,” added Dr Aniket Mahato, another leader.
The signed minutes of the meeting documented a sanction of Rs 100 crore for infrastructure development in hospitals for doctors and rebuilding of patient welfare committees as more inclusive with stakeholders.
To tackle safety-security measures in hospitals, a special task force headed by the chief secretary and having as members the home secretary, DGP, CP Kolkata and representatives of junior doctors, the minutes stated.
It also documented the setting up of an “effective and responsive grievance redressal mechanism” in medical infrastructure across hospitals and colleges of the state.
“Such measures are ineffective until a democratic work atmosphere returns to hospitals with simultaneous uprooting of threats and corruption nexus,” an agitating doctor said.
Early morning celebrations with protestors playing drums and blowing conch shells were witnessed at the Swasthya Bhawan agitation site.
Earlier on Monday, talks between the state government and the agitating junior doctors began at around 6.50 pm after four unsuccessful previous bids to initiate a dialogue to resolve the deadlock. The meeting lasted for about two hours.
It took another three hours to complete the process of finalizing the minutes of the meeting in the presence of the state chief secretary.
Previous attempts to resolve the issue got stuck due to the state government's rejection of the doctors' demand for live-streaming and video recordings of the meeting.
The agitating medics later agreed to a compromise, now only asking to record the minutes of the meeting and receive a signed copy.
The state government also allowed the two stenographers, accompanying the agitating doctors, inside the venue to record the minutes of the meeting.
Meanwhile, the doctors continued their sit-in outside Swasthya Bhawan, the headquarters of the Health Department, for eight days and the 'cease work' for the 38th day seeking justice for the RG Kar victim and demanding removal of top police and health officials.
The talks fructified after the state government "for the fifth and the final time" invited the protesting doctors for talks to end the impasse, two days after the dialogue failed to take off over disagreement on live-streaming of the meeting.
On Saturday, Banerjee made a surprise visit to the protest site and assured the doctors that their demands would be addressed.
However, the proposed meeting fell through when the protesters claimed they were asked to leave "unceremoniously" after waiting for three hours at the gates of the CM's residence.
In the Capital, senior doctors of RG Kar Medical College alleged tampering of evidence in the Kolkata doctor rape and murder case.
In a statement, the doctors demanded that they want authorities concerned, the CBI and the Supreme Court expedite the investigation process and punish the culprits without any delay.
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Israel launches first airstrike on Lebanon since ceasefire, accusing Hezbollah of breaching truce
Beirut, Nov 28: The Israeli military on Thursday said its warplanes fired on southern Lebanon after detecting Hezbollah activity at a rocket storage facility, the first Israeli airstrike a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took hold.
There was no immediate word on casualties from Israel's aerial attack, which came hours after the Israeli military said it fired on people trying to return to certain areas in southern Lebanon. Israel said they were violating the ceasefire agreement, without providing details. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded.
The back-to-back incidents stirred unease about the agreement, brokered by the United States and France, which includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah members are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
On Thursday, the second day of a ceasefire after more than a year of bloody conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon's state news agency reported that Israeli fire targeted civilians in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. Israel said it fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese Hezbollah group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.
