In the heart of the Indian megacity Kolkata, a makeshift protest camp has formed outside one of its most overburdened hospitals. The walls of RG Kar Medical College Hospital are covered with angry slogans: “Stop rape”, “We want justice”, “Staying silent when the fire is raging is siding with the ones who lit it”.

The demonstrations, which spread into a national strike, have come in response to the rape and murder of a female trainee doctor who was attacked at the hospital in early August. The 31-year-old lay down to sleep in a seminar room at the end of a 36-hour shift. The following morning, the woman — known publicly by the pseudonym Abhaya (“fearless”) because of an Indian law protecting the identities of victims — was found dead with appalling injuries, including signs of sexual assault.

According to her colleagues, the state-run hospital lacks adequate facilities; doctors and patients of both genders are forced to share bathrooms, conditions described as both unsanitary and unsafe.