A 19-year-old nursing trainee was raped, allegedly by an auto-rickshaw driver, in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district. According to preliminary information, the victim had taken an auto-rickshaw ride home when the driver offered her drinking water. The water was spiked and the teenager lost consciousness. The driver then allegedly took the victim to a deserted place and sexually assaulted her.

On regaining consciousness, the victim informed her family and later registered a police complaint. An FIR has been registered and police are scanning CCTV footage to zero in on the accused. The woman is recovering at a state-run hospital.

The incident has sparked protests in the area. Local residents blocked a road for hours last night, demanding swift action in the case.

The Ratnagiri incident comes amid nationwide outrage against crime against women in the aftermath of the horrifying rape and murder of a 31-year-old doctor in Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

The doctor, who was on night duty at the state-run hospital, was found dead in a seminar hall the next morning. Medical examination confirmed sexual assault. Sanjoy Roy, a civic volunteer who frequented the hospital, was arrested the day after the incident. The investigation into the case was transferred to the CBI after a Calcutta High Court order.

Maharashtra, too, is outraged after two minor girls were sexually assaulted at a school in Badlapur. Police have arrested an attendant of the school for allegedly abusing the girls.

Amid the nationwide call for ensuring the safety of doctors in the wake of the rape and murder at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, a woman junior doctor was attacked by a patient at a hospital in Tirupati. The incident at Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences (SVIMS) was captured by a CCTV camera in the hospital.

The CCTV footage shows the attacker grab the doctor by her hair and bang her head on the steel frame of a hospital bed. Others doctors in the ward immediately come to their colleague’s rescue and the attacker is overpowered and taken away.

In a letter to SVIMS director cum vice-chancellor Dr RV Kumar, the intern said she was on duty in the Emergency Medicine Department on Saturday. “… I was unexpectedly attacked by a patient, Bangaru Raju, who approached me from behind, pulled my hair and began forcibly banging my head against the steel rod of a cot,” she wrote, adding that no security personnel were present at the site to help her.

The incident, she said, raises serious concerns about safety in workplace. “If patient had been armed with a sharp weapon, the situation could have escalated with severe consequences,” the doctor wrote, demanding security measures to ensure safety of staff.

Following the incident, doctors of the hospital staged a protest and demanded safety at workplace.

The incident at the Andhra hospital comes weeks after the chilling rape and murder of a postgraduate trainee doctor at Kolkata. The 31-year-old was raped and killed on duty. The incident has sparked massive protests and doctors of several premier institutions across the country took to the streets to demand measures to ensure their safety at work.

The Supreme Court has now set up a 10-member National Task Force to recommend steps to prevent violence against and ensure working conditions for healthcare workers. The court has said the task force would prepare an action plan to prevent gender-based violence and ensure a dignified working space for doctors.

Against this backdrop, the incident at SVIMS, Tirupati, yet again puts under the spotlight the safety of doctors on duty.