RG Kar case: IMA chief says doctors have always been soft targets

With the young medics' indefinite hunger strike in West Bengal entering the ninth day on Tuesday, Indian Medical Association chief Dr R V Asokan said doctors have always been "soft targets" and that "injustice inflicted on the medical fraternity has no parallel". Doctors in West Bengal began their hunger strike on October 5, following nearly 50 days of 'cease work' in two phases, over the rape and murder of a postgraduate trainee at state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9. In a statement, posted on X by the IMA, Dr Asokan said on Tuesday that from the word go a doctor in India is a "slave chained by the Bond system". In the post titled "Meek shall inherit the Earth", Dr Asokan said the rape and murder of the resident doctor at Kolkata's R G Kar Hospital and Medical College has brought out the "rot that has set in the country's medical colleges". "We are witness to how the sacrifice of the young resident suffocated and raped to a brutal death is haunting the empire