Kolkata Police claims ‘assessment failure’ in R.G. Kar Hospital mob attack

RG Kar Hospital violence: Kolkata Police Commissioner condemns social media speculation on doctor's rape and murder, admits assessment failure, urges verified information.

Commissioner of Kolkata Police Vineet Kumar Goyal on Friday strongly condemned social media speculation surrounding the rape and murder of a doctor at Kolkata’s R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital and admitted to an “assessment failure” on the part of the police regarding the mob violence that broke out on the hospital premises in the early hours of Thursday (August 15, 2024).

A violent mob broke down police barricades vandalised the premises of the hospital with sticks and rods, and destroyed ventilators, medical equipment, hospital beds, furniture etc. on Thursday. This incident happened at a time when thousands of people had gathered in over 50 locations in the city as part of the ‘Reclaim the Night’ marches to demand justice for the victim and better safety for women.

So far, 25 people have been arrested in connection to the attack.

“It was a leaderless crowd, anticipating and assessing how many people would gather in various places across the city was difficult. We had to spread ourselves thin, there were many women so we had to be restrained in our response,” Mr. Goyal said. “We had sufficient deployment on that day. Despite that, the barricade was breached and the people vandalised the place,” he added.

He said that his forces were outnumbered in this situation. “There were far too many people for the small number of force which was there to prevent the breach of law and order,” he explained.

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“This entire protest was supposed to be a peaceful protest. There was no such intelligence… that there was likely to be vandalism,” he added.