Woman doctor assaulted in West Bengal government hospital, two held

A woman doctor was assaulted over a patient dispute at a State-run medical college at Uluberia in Howrah. Two persons were arrested, and one of the perpetrators is allegedly a police home guard. Three others were arrested for a separate incident of sexual assault on a woman at Jalpaiguri district in north Bengal. 

According to police officials, two persons were arrested on Monday for the assault on a woman junior resident doctor in the Uluberia Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay Government Medical College and Hospital.

“The doctor has lodged an official complaint. We have filed a First Information Report. The two persons named in the FIR have already been arrested right after the assault,” Jadhav Shubham Pandurang, Sub-Divisional Police Officer (Uluberia), told The Hindu on Tuesday. He also confirmed that an investigation was underway. 

One of the accused is allegedly a police home guard who had threatened the woman doctor of consequences if she left the hospital premises. She also alleged that she received rape threats during the assault. The arrested home guard has been identified as Sheikh Babulal. According to the doctor, she was pushed around and physically assaulted during the heated interaction where the people accompanying a patient started escalating the matter. 

“I was on duty. I was conducting examinations on the ailing patient. The patient party started hitting me and one of them claimed that he is a high-ranking police official and a ruling party worker, but when police reached the spot, he said he is a home guard,” the doctor said. 

‘No safety for women’

The opposition Bharatiya Janta Party slammed the ruling Trinamool Congress for the lack of women safety in the State and repeated assaults on women doctors. 

“If he is calling himself a police officer and harassing women, then it is a matter of serious concern. Then who will protect people?” Sukanta Majumdar, MP and former BJP State president, asked. He said West Bengal under the Trinamool Congress was unsafe for women. 

BJP workers staged protests against the incident in Uluberia. 

The West Bengal Doctors Forum condemned the assault and said this was not an isolated crime but a “symptom of lawlessness that has gripped the healthcare system.” 

This comes after multiple other incidents of rape and assault on women doctors were recorded in the State in the last one year, including the rape and murder of a woman doctor in R.G. Kar Hospital in August 2024 in Kolkata, which took the nation by storm. Another woman staffer was raped inside a hospital in Panskura.  

Gang rape in north Bengal 

In another incident, a homemaker in north Bengal’s Maynaguri area was gangraped by miscreants. Three men were arrested for the crime. 

The homemaker alleged that she was sexually assaulted inside her home. The perpetrators threatened to kill her if she spoke about the assault. 

The survivor filed a complaint on Sunday (October 19), and the incident happened on Friday (October 17). One person was arrested on Sunday, two others were arrested on Monday. All three perpetrators were from the same village as the survivor, and they were known to each other, said Subal Chandra Ghosh, Inspector-in-charge at the Maynaguri police station. 

In two other incidents of sexual assault in 2025, two young women were raped on two city college campuses. One woman student from Odisha was raped near her private medical college in Durgapur a few days ago.