INDIA’S top court set up a national task force of doctors today to make recommendations on the safety of healthcare staff in their workplaces following the recent rape and killing of a trainee doctor in the eastern city of Kolkata.

Amid continuing outrage and nationwide protests over the shocking crime, the Supreme Court said the doctors’ panel would frame guidelines for ensuring the safety and protection of medical professionals and health workers across the country.

Chief Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud said: “Protecting safety of doctors and women doctors is a matter of national interest and principle of equality.

“The nation cannot await another rape for it to take some steps.”

Lawyer Bikash Ranjan Bhattarcharya, who is representing the parents of the victim of the attack at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College, said the court “has expressed its unhappiness over the the role of the police and the state administration.”

Mr Bhattarcharya, who is also a Communist Party of India (Marxist) member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament, added that the court had also given instructions that if the police cannot provide security for the doctors at the hospital, then the state must redeploy national forces to ensure their safety.

Doctors and medics across India have continued to hold protests, candle-lit marches and have even temporarily refused care for non-emergency patients since August 9, when the killing occurred. 

Female-led protests in the streets of Kolkata have focused on the endemic violence faced by women and girls across India.

The 2012 murder of a female student on a bus in Delhi forced MPs to order harsher punishments for such crimes, including the death penalty for repeat offenders, but sexual violence against women continues to be a widespread problem.

A police volunteer has been arrested and charged with the Kolkata attack.