Protesting junior doctors in West Bengal defied a Supreme Court order, asking them to resume work by 5 pm on Tuesday, and said they would continue with their protest till their demands were fulfilled and the rape and murder victim of the RG Kar Hospital was given justice.
As the medicos continued to protest for the 32nd day on Tuesday, demanding the removal of the Kolkata police commissioner and several top state health department officials, the state government said Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has written to the protesters, inviting them for a meeting at the secretariat to resolve the impasse over the incident.
However, the protesting doctors said the mail for the meeting was from the state health secretary, whose resignation they were seeking, and termed it as "insulting". They also said that restricting the number of representatives to attend the meeting to 10 was "humiliating".
The top court on Monday directed the protesting resident doctors to resume work by 5 PM on Tuesday, observing that if "there is continued abstention from work, there may be a likelihood of adverse action".
Meanwhile, the RG Kar hospital authorities issued notices to 51 doctors, including to senior residents and professors, accusing them of fostering intimidation and disrupting the institution's democratic atmosphere, and summoned them to an inquiry committee on September 11.
Asserting that their demands were not met, the protesting doctors defied the apex court's order and said they would continue with their ‘cease work’ till their demands were fulfilled and the rape and murder victim of the RG Kar Hospital was given justice.
"We had asked the state government to remove the Kolkata police commissioner, health secretary, director of health services, and the director of medical education by 5 pm (Tuesday). We are open to discussion," one of the protesting doctors said.
The junior doctors began their strike on August 9, hours after the body of the female trainee was found in the seminar room of the hospital. Since then, the protest has escalated, leading to disruptions in healthcare services at state-run hospitals across West Bengal.
The state government claimed in the Supreme Court that the strike has resulted in the deaths of 23 patients and has severely impacted the healthcare delivery mechanism.
During the day, the protesting doctors marched to 'Swasthya Bhavan' – the headquarters of the health department in Salt Lake – and staged a sit-in outside the office building to press for their demand.
The protesters carried brooms and a model human brain while marching towards 'Swasthya Bhavan' in a symbolic bid to "clean up" the state health sector and make the top brass "think" about the plight of the doctors.
Taking exception to the “language of the email”, the agitating junior medics rejected the CM’s invitation for talks at the state secretariat to resolve the impasse over the RG Kar hospital issue.
“The language of the communication is not only disrespectful to us doctors, it’s downright insensitive. We find no reason to reply to this mail,” Dr Debasish Halder, a leader of the protesting doctors who organised a sit-in before the state health department headquarters at ‘Swasthya Bhavan’ in Salt Lake, said.
“Our protests and our ‘cease work’ will continue," he asserted, indicating yet another night-long sit-in before the state health headquarters.
Addressing the media shortly after 7.30 pm from ‘Nabanna’, Bengal’s Minister of State for Health, Chandrima Bhattacharya, claimed that the chief minister had taken a “positive approach” by extending her olive branch to the agitating medics.
“The email was sent to the official ID of the Junior Doctors’ Front at around 6.10 pm. The chief minister was waiting for the doctors’ delegation to come for the meeting. She left her office at 7.30 pm since there was no response from the protesters,” Bhattacharya said.
In a late evening development, the North Bengal Medical College in Siliguri issued a notification, expelling five third-year MBBS students for allegedly threatening officials and other students.
“They are also required to vacate the hostel and leave the medical college premises,” it said.
Also on Tuesday, Sandip Ghosh, the former principal of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, was sent to judicial custody till September 23 by a special CBI court in connection with a financial irregularities case.
His security personnel Afsar Ali, medical equipment vendor Biplab Singha, and pharmacy shop owner Suman Hazara, were also remanded to judicial custody until September 23.
The accused were previously in CBI custody for eight days, but the investigators did not seek an extension of their remand.
"The CBI has already secured large amounts of digital evidence on the alleged crime. We need time to analyse that evidence. We do not need the accused in police custody immediately, but we may seek their custody again later if required," the agency's counsel stated in court.
Chaotic scenes unfolded at the Alipore Court premises when Ghosh and the others were produced before the judge. Women lawyers shouted slogans against Ghosh and attempted to block the courtroom exit. They also demanded that the accused "be hanged" for their alleged involvement in abetting the rape and murder of the trainee doctor.
The police sought the help of the central paramilitary forces to control the situation.
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