Nurse in India escapes gang rape by cutting off doctor’s genitals

Authorities in India’s Bihar state arrested three men on Thursday after an incident at a private hospital in which a doctor and several other staff members attempted to gang-rape a nurse. According to multiple reports, the nurse escaped by using a surgical blade to cut off the doctor’s genitals.

Dr Sanjay Kumar Sanju is one of three people arrested for attempted rape, according to the The Hindustan Times. Citing the police report, the newspaper reported that the men involved had consumed alcohol and committed several acts indicating a premeditated attempt to rape the woman. Reports at the time of going to press did not make it clear whether the police believe the men intended to injure or kill the nurse in question. The men are reportedly accused of consuming alcohol, which is illegal in Bihar.

The harrowing details of the alleged assault follow weeks of political unrest in India over the ongoing threat of rape against Indian medical workers. Female doctors, nurses and other health professionals in India have decried the government and private medical facilities for failing to provide adequate security to prevent sexual assaults and murders of hospital staff.

A nationwide doctors’ strike broke out in August in response to the rape and murder of a resident doctor in Kolkata, which occurred while she was trying to take a nap in a seminar room at a hospital. Although the suspect was not working at the hospital and it was fully operational at the time of the rape and murder, no one intervened to protect the woman or stop the accused, Sanjoy Roy, from entering the doctors’ area in the complex.

While the national strike ended, a local doctors’ strike in Kolkata continued this week.

India Today reported that the survivor of the Bihar incident was a nurse employed at the RBS Health Care Centre in Gangapur, Bihar, for the past ten to fifteen months. The police reportedly found her hiding in an empty field.

“The nurse… narrated how the doctor, a physiotherapist, and his two associates had been drinking before they started harassing her,” India Today reported, citing the police report. “When she resisted the doctor’s advances, she initially struggled to push him away. In an act of self-defence, she used a surgical blade to attack the doctor, giving him a chance to escape and call for help.”

“The presence of mind and courage shown by the survivor is commendable,” Deputy Superintendent of Police Sanjay Kumar Pandey told reporters.

THE The Hindustan Times Police were reported to have “found blood-stained sheets, mobile phones and bottles of alcohol at the hospital”, corroborating the nurse’s account, and to have discovered that the clinic’s private camera system had been disabled, potentially by the attackers to eliminate evidence of the crime.

Besides Dr Kumar, two men identified as Sunil Kumar Gupta and Awadhesh Kumar are in police custody following the incident.

The incident comes as India is gripped by a national controversy, sparked by a similar incident in which the victim did not survive. In early August, a 31-year-old resident working at the government-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata was trying to take a nap in a seminar room at the hospital when a man identified as Sanjoy Roy assaulted, raped and killed her. The woman was found with a broken neck and “eye injuries” suggesting extreme violence in the last moments of her life.

Roy reportedly confessed to the crime immediately. The man was known to locals for spending a lot of time at the hospital and often behaving inappropriately towards the women who worked there, but he did not work there and was not related to any patients. It is unclear why he was allowed to loiter on the premises. Roy claimed to be a “civic volunteer” with the Kolkata Police and reportedly often posed as a police officer when he had no legitimate law enforcement authority.

Police later told reporters that Roy’s phone contained “quite disturbing and violent” pornographic content, to which he was believed to have been addicted. There is no suggestion that anyone in a position of authority at the public hospital attempted to bar Roy from the premises, despite widespread reports that he was, at best, a nuisance to those working there and, ultimately, a major threat.

Doctors across the country went on strike to protest the gruesome rapes and murders. Several protests turned violent in August. In one such incident, unidentified men described as “thugs” unaffiliated with the protesting doctors reportedly attacked a hospital in Kolkata, ransacking the premises and causing extensive property damage. Several “thugs” also destroyed police vehicles and physically beat up the protesting doctors.

“A mob of miscreants entered the hospital. The agitated doctors were attacked and had to flee,” senior resident Subhendu Mullick told Indian news agency World Is One News (WION). “They even tried to enter the building where the junior doctor was raped and murdered. The police remained tight-lipped.”

While calls for a nationwide doctors’ strike largely subsided by the end of August, doctors in Kolkata remain off work, disobeying a court order to return to work.

“Protesters set up camp outside the state health department headquarters, expressing five key demands: justice for the victim, the dismissal of senior police officers and increased security for health workers, among others,” the BBC reported Wednesday. Local authorities have blamed striking doctors for at least 23 deaths.

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