Midnight Mob Attack On Kolkata Hospital, Protesting Doctors Triggers Intense Anger; Netizens Blame Trinamool Congress For Odious Act

Even as peaceful protests were being held across Kolkata (and the rest of the country and even some cities in other countries) late Wednesday evening (14 August) against the shocking rape and murder of a young lady doctor at the state-run RG Kar Medical College Hospital, a mob of a few hundred goons staged a brutal attack on the hospital. 

The mob, which some videos suggest were transported in trucks to Shyambazar in North Kolkata, where the teaching hospital is located, went on the rampage and destroyed many facilities in the hospital. 

The mob attacked protesting medicos, destroyed a temporary dias where the protests were being held, the hospital’s emergency ward, and other facilities. 

According to the junior doctors who were present, the large contingent of policemen offered no resistance and simply retreated. The doctors themselves tried to barricade the mobs’ entry into the hospital, but were badly outnumbered. 

A few police vehicles were overturned, and cops were also attacked. A few junior doctors were injured by the mob, armed with sticks, clubs, and choppers. The mob also allegedly tried to enter the ladies’ hostel. 

The mob attack left the doctors shell-shocked and also triggered more outrage. Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal reached the hospital in the wee hours of Thursday (15 August) and blamed the media for carrying out a “malicious campaign” against police inaction and alleged cover-up of the (rape-murder) crime. 

The media campaign against the police, he suggested, instigated the midnight attack on the RG Kar Medical College Hospital. 

But there were no takers for Goyal’s attempt to deflect blame and obfuscate the issue. This is evident from the outpouring of condemnation on social media for the mob attack. 

Most netizens, as well as agitating doctors and common citizens, blamed the Trinamool Congress for staging the attack, which, they said, was a vile attempt to discredit the protests against the rape-murder, silence the protesting doctors, and deflect attention from the protests. 

Though Trinamool Congress leaders condemned the mob attack on RG Kar Medical College Hospital, they faced a backlash. Trinamool chairperson Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek, for instance, posted on X condemning “vandalism and hooliganism.”

But the responses to his post were revealing. All blamed the Trinamool Congress for staging the attack and accused the party and Abhishek Banerjee of hypocrisy and worse. Other Trinamool Congress leaders also faced similar backlash on social media. 

Everyone, from the common man on the street to doctors, professionals, and others, is accusing the Trinamool Congress of sending its goons to attack the RG Kar Medical College Hospital in order to discredit the protests, dissuade more protests, and deflect attention from the protests. 

The ongoing agitation and protests against the rape-murder of the lady doctor have now gained more momentum, thanks to the alleged ham-handed attempts by the Trinamool Congress to discredit the agitation.