A nurse was raped and killed while she was returning from a private hospital in Uttarakhand to her home near the Uttar Pradesh border.

She left the hospital on the evening of July 30 and was seen taking an e-rickshaw from Indra Chowk in Rudrapur in CCTV footage but did not reach her rented accommodation on Kashipur Road in Uttar Pradesh’s Bilaspur where she stayed with her 11-year-old daughter.

The next day, her sister filed a missing complaint. Eight days later on August 8, the Uttar Pradesh police found her body in an empty plot, nearly 1.5 km from her house in Dibdiba village.

The police sent the body for post-mortem and formed a police team to find the accused. They traced the victim’s stolen mobile phone which led them to the accused, Dharmendra. The accused, a daily wage labourer from Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly, was arrested from Rajasthan on Wednesday.

Dharmendra, who was drunk, saw the victim, followed her and attacked her while she was about to enter her apartment building, police said.

“He dragged her to the nearby bushes. Raped and strangled her using her scarf,” said Manjunath TC, Senior Superintendent of Police, Udham Singh Nagar.

He also stole her phone and Rs 3,000 from her purse, the police officer added.

This comes amid a nationwide outrage over the rape and murder of a woman trainee doctor during her duty hour in Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. The 31-year-old’s semi-naked body was found in the seminar hall of the government-run hospital last week.

The brutal incident has reignited calls for better safety of doctors at their workplaces. Resident doctors across the country are protesting, demanding an assurance that the Central Healthcare Protection Act would be passed to curb attacks on medical personnel.

Three days and a midnight massacre at her Emergency Department later, RG Kar Hospital’s new principal Suhrita Pal lost her cool with the students today. As protesting doctors demanded that she take immediate action regarding the midnight mob attack and meet the students’ demands, Ms Pal retorted, “If you can’t trust me for one hour then send me home also”. 

The reference was to her predecessor Sandip Ghosh, who has been sent on a long leave by the Calcutta High Court, which was furious over his new posting less than 12 hours after his resignation.

“I need one hour to do some official work. You need to believe me, I won’t go. You have to believe me. If you can’t believe me then don’t expect anything from me,” Suhrita Pal said.

Suhrita Ghose, who was with the state government’s health department, was appointed to the post after Sandip Ghosh resigned. He was appointed Principal of the city’s top medical college – National Medical College and Hospital – the very day he resigned from RG Kar. Both appointments were with immediate effect, the government notification said. 

Mr Ghosh’s new posting remained a non-starter. Initially he got locked out of the Principal’s room by the students of National Medical College, who went on a protest immediately after the announcement. A day later, he was ordered to go on a long leave by the High Court.

At RG Kar meanwhile, the students’ protest had continued, despite the court order that the Central Bureau of Investigation take over the rape-murder case of a  31-year-old doctor that has shocked the country and triggered a furore in its hospitals.

As the planned midnight protest started across the city on August 14, RG Kar hospital was targeted by a mob of unidentified people who proceeded to wreck the protest spot, the Emergency Department and  attacked students and the police when they arrived to control the situation. Fifteen policemen were injured. 

The students have blamed the hospital authorities for failing to provide security yet again. 

The rape and murder of the young doctor at the seminar hall of the hospital on Friday morning has drawn much attention to the lack of security and proper facilities at the state-run hospital.

There have been claims that the mob had deliberately wrecked the crime scene, which the police have denied. The BJP’s Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari has alleged that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had sent “goons” of the Trinamool College to disrupt the women’s protest rally near the hospital.