The father of the trainee doctor murdered during a rest break at a Kolkata hospital has spoken of his daughter’s love of medicine and the way her family had worked to support her vocation.
“We are a poor family and we raised her with a lot of hardship. She worked extremely hard to become a doctor. All she did was study, study, study,” he said.
“All our dreams have been shattered in one night. We sent her to work and the hospital gave us her body. It’s all finished for us.
“My daughter isn’t coming back. I’m never going to hear her voice or laugh. All I can do now is concentrate on getting her justice,” he said.
The rape and murder of the doctor at RG Kar hospital in Kolkata on 9 August, and subsequent handling of the case by the authorities, has led to protests and strikes by doctors across India.
Her father, who cannot be named under an Indian law that protects the identity of the dead woman, said a career in medicine was all his only child had ever wanted. The 31-year-old had beaten the odds to qualify for one of approximately 107,000 places in India’s medical colleges, which more than a million aspiring doctors compete for every year.
She won a place at College of Medicine & JNM hospital in Kalyani in her home state of West Bengal. Her parents financed her dream with the precarious income her father earned as a tailor.
Remembering the day she confided in him she wanted to become a doctor, his voice broke. “She said: ‘Papa, it’s a good thing to become a doctor and help others. What do you think?’ I said: ‘OK, do it. We’ll help you.’ And look what happened,” he said.
Her ambition drove him to expand his tailoring business and the family’s finances improved to the point where, when his daughter fretted about safety on the hour-long bus ride between the hospital and their home in a crowded Kolkata suburb, he was able to borrow the money to buy her a car.
