New Delhi: A group of 200 medical students was lathi-charged in Mumbai on Saturday when they blocked a road to the Raj Bhavan to protest against the government’s reservation proposal.
Police dragged the students away and put them in vans after they refused to clear the road. Eight-five medical students were arrested for unlawful assembly.
Traffic on the busy Walkeshwar Road, which leads to the Governor's and Chief Minister's residences, stopped because of the blockade.
Mumbai Police Commissioner A N Roy said the students were trying to force into the Governor's residence and police were forced to take action.
"No one was injured but we are holding a medical examination of those arrested. There was a melee at the site and some people may have fell down and got injured," he said.
Medical students' strike against the Government’s proposal to bring in 27 per cent reservation for the OBCs in Central universities and colleges is spreading.
Resident doctors of five government hospitals in Delhi did not report for duty on Saturday, paralysing facilities. Doctors and students at AIIMS shouted slogans against Union HRD Minister Arjun Singh.
The students will start an indefinite hunger strike from Sunday at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences AIIMS.
Services at three government medical colleges in Cuttack, Burla and Berhampur cities of Orissa were affected when about 1,200 house surgeons and junior doctors in government medical colleges went on strike, said B D Patnaik, coordinator of the Orissa Medical Students Association.
The doctors plan to begin a hunger strike to oppose the Centre's proposal, said Patnaik.
In Ahmedabad, medical students of different colleges went on an indefinite strike as a mark of solidarity for their counterparts in Delhi. Over 600 under-graduate medical students and interns staged a protest at the Civil Hospital Campus.
"We want the government to find a long-term solution to the whole reservation issue," said a student leader. "We will neither attend our classes nor go for duty at the clinics till the government clarifies its stand on the issue."
The Indian Medical Association has called for a "total medical bandh" in Delhi on Monday. It is likely to call a nationwide strike on May 25 if the IMA national committee ratifies the proposal at its meeting in Delhi on May 20-21.
(with agency inputs)
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