India's West Bengal state proposes death penalty for rape after doctor's murder

Bill passed on Tuesday will be sent to the state governor and then to the President of India to be signed into law

Junior doctors hold posters during a protest to demand the resignation of a city police commissioner and condemn the rape and murder of a medic, in Kolkata on September 2, 2024. AFP

India’s state of West Bengal on Tuesday passed an anti-rape bill to make sexual assaults punishable by death in cases where the victim dies or is left in a vegetative state, after weeks of protests over the rape and murder of a junior doctor at a local government-run hospital.

The Aparajita Women and Child Bill (West Bengal Criminal Laws and Amendment) 2024 also proposes the creation of a special task force, investigative teams at district level, and dedicated fast-track courts for sexual assault cases.

The bill will be sent to the state governor and then to India's President Droupadi Murmu to be signed into law.

The bill was passed nearly a month after a 31-year-old trainee doctor was raped and murdered at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, the state capital.

Her body was discovered in the hospital’s seminar room on August 9 with 16 external and nine internal injuries, including signs of strangulation, according to a postmortem report.

“Rape is a curse against humanity and social reforms are required to stop such crimes,” West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said while tabling the bill in the state legislative assembly.

“The anti-rape bill aims at quick investigation, fast justice delivery and enhanced punishment. Through this bill, we have tried to plug the loopholes that exist in the central legislation.”

Ms Banerjee said her government would spend one billion rupees ($12 million) to build restrooms for staff and install lighting systems and surveillance cameras at healthcare institutions.

One person has been arrested in the Kolkata case, which led to nationwide protests and strike action by junior and trainee doctors. The case has been handed over to Central Bureau of Investigation, a federal agency.

Meanwhile, the former principal of the RG Kar Medical College, Sandip Ghosh, was taken into custody by the CBI in a parallel investigation. He is accused of financial irregularities at the hospital and resigned three days after the doctor's rape and murder.

India's federal laws on sexual assault were amended and stricter punishments introduced after the 2012 gang rape of a physiotherapy student in New Delhi that led to her death.

However, government data shows that an average of nearly 90 rapes were reported daily in 2022 in the country of 1.4 billion people.

The central government promised in 2017 to set up 1,800 fast-track courts for sexual assault cases but only 722 have been started, with nearly 600,000 cases pending before them.

According to the National Criminal Records Bureau, the conviction rate in rape cases between 2018 and 2022 was 27-28 per cent.