Kolkata continued to remain loyal to its age old insignia —Michhil Nagari or City of Processions — with players and engineers, IT personnel on Wednesday joining the doctors in their ongoing protest movement against the RG Kar Medical College rape and murder case.

Veteran players from myriad fields like football swimming, athletics etc joined the march for “Justice” for the 31-year-old lady doctor who was allegedly raped and murdered in the wee hours  of August 8.

Among who joined the march were Chess Grand Master Dibyendu Barua, swimmer Bula Chowdhury, sprinter Jyotirmoyee Sikdar and national soccer player Gautam Sarkar.

“We have joined not to get justice for the young lady doctor but also for the whole society… enough is enough we cannot breathe anymore in this vitiated system where everything is rotting… tomorrow it can be my family members or anyone else’s… you need a foolproof system in place,” said Chowdhury.

Sarkar too lent his voice saying, “It is not the culprits that have to be hanged but the system in which they flourish that has to go to the gallows… this rule of the corrupt, by the corrupt and for the corrupt must end because in the mire of this corruption these devils are born… who else than the State can do it… we demand justice for the State… if a doctor is not safe inside her own hospital … if a journalist is not safe inside her own office… if a policewoman is not safe inside the police station… if a player is not safe inside the camp… or for that matter if a politician is not safe inside the legislature then who is safe in which place.” 

A former Ranji Trophy player said, “It is the voice that has risen from within the society and that has to be addressed or else it will turn into a volcano… society is scared… I am a father of a girl who too is in a profession that I won’t name and I want her safe…

“I can just imagine what the old parents of the ill-fated doctor who was killed so brutally must be going through… gradually this fire will subside but the pain of losing an ‘aulad’ (offspring) that is burning the old parents by the hour will never subside… so it is the duty of the society to see the end of it.”

Elsewhere at the College Street a swarm of retired and working engineers joined a procession demanding “justice.” One of them who worked with the State Government for 35 years said, “I retired in 2005 … went through the hoodlum years of the 1970s when Bengal lost hundreds of young people to naxalite movement and police atrocities … but not like this … I was not scared then as I am scared now.”

Samar Mahapatra another mechanical engineer who worked on a top post with the Indian Railways said he had severe arthritis and could not walk properly “but see the dead doctor has brought me here and I am walking with a stick to demand justice for her … my daughter is in the US … I hope she remains safe there… my solidarity with the family … and when this hue and cry subsides I will visit the family of the victim and continue to be by their side till I die.”

Meanwhile, even a day after the Supreme Court ordering deployment of Central Industrial Security Force for the security of RGKMCH there was no sign of the ongoing medical strike ending with the several thousand junior doctors on Wednesday marching to the Swasthya Bhawan (Health Headquarters).

“We came to seek solution to a number of issues like foolproof security, inquiry into complains of corruption in all the State-run medical colleges and hospitals and appointment of full-time principals in medical colleges but there was no assurance coming from the authorities … it seems that the Health Department is under serious pressure from higher authorities,” said an agitating doctor from the RG Kar Hospital.

The doctors’ march came in tandem with a DIG of the CISF on Wednesday visiting the Hospital with a posse of security personnel. “The CISF officials had come to make a survey and inspect the hospital premises before they take charge … they visited the principal’s chamber and some other areas and then left,” a source in the hospital said.

An Apex Court Bench led by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud on Tuesday constituted a 10-member National Task Force (NTF) to formulate a national protocol to ensure the safety and facilities of doctors. The task force is asked to submit an interim report in three weeks and a final one in two months. The Court also ordered deployment of CISF at RGKMCH.