The ongoing agitation by doctors against police lathicharge on junior medicos of a government college on Sunday intensified with 300 teachers deciding to resign on the second day of their indefinite strike.
The strike at Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Medical College Hospital in Kanpur, called by the Indian Medical Association, was called to protest the police action following a clash between the junior doctors and an SP MLA and his supporters, crippling services in various wards at the associated Hallett Hospital.
The stir was joined by private doctors.
"300 doctor teachers of the medical college have decided to resign. The process of their resignation has begun and will be completed by Monday, " IMA Kanpur Chapter, President and Chief of Medicine Department at the college, Aarti Lal Chandani told PTI.
"All the doctors have decided to resign wilfully in protest against the police lathicharge on the junior doctors of the college and their arrest," Chandani said.
"We demand that guilty police officials be suspended immediately and the arrested doctors be released," Chandani said and added, "till our demands are met, the strike at the medical college will continue and the services will remain suspended."
Chandani claimed that nearly 2000 private doctors in the city are also not working in support of the strike and all nursing homes and private hospitals too were shut.
Government hospitals Ursula and KPM Hospital are open and patients of the medical college are being transferred there.
In an attempt to call off the strike, Mohammad Iftikharuddin and DM Roshan Jacob visited the medical college several times on Sunday, urging the doctors to withdraw the stir, but to no avail.
Meanwhile, Kanpur SP (West) Gaurav Singh said the 24 junior doctors arrested in connection with the clash were sent to jail. Heavy police force has been deployed around the college and no untoward incident has been reported, he added.
A clash broke out on Friday night between supporters of SP MLA Irfan Solanki and junior doctors of the college.
The clash started when the Aryanagar MLA objected to some junior doctors of the college allegedly misbehaving with an elderly person at the Medical College Square, SSP Yashasvi Yadav had said. Following unruly scenes, the police later resorted to lathicharge to disperse the crowd.
The incident left several people, including police personnel, journalists and many civilians injured, sources had said.
The MLA was also injured in the clash, Yadav had said.
Thirty-six junior doctors were arrested after the incident. Twelve of them were later released.
"Almost 400 medical students and junior doctors got injured and a dozen are serious," Chandani had said.
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