Anti-reservation protests continued as students from other disciplines joined their medical counterparts on the streets.
Engineering and management students join agitation as medicos remain firm
Ginnie Mahajan/Agencies
NEW DELHI: Anti-reservation protests continued to rage across the country on Tuesday as students from disciplines like engineering and management joined their medical counterparts on the streets. Medical services continued to be severely hit, while sources suggested government may consider imposing Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) on striking doctors.
Resident doctors in Delhi received notices from the Union Health Ministry warning them that their services will be terminated as per their contract if they did not join work. In Delhi, resident doctors, students and interns are still continuing with their strike, but are also working in parallel OPDs. At AIIMS, the OPD was held under the trees while at Safdarjung Hospital, the OPD was located near the front gate. “We are doing the best we can, as we don’t want patients to suffer,” said Dr Anirudh at AIIMS.
Meanwhile, more than 95 medical students are continuing with an indefinite hunger strike on the lawns of AIIMS. They were on Tuesday joined by students from IIT Delhi, Delhi University and Indraprastha University.
In Bihar, engineering and management students joined their counterparts from medical colleges for a rally in Patna. Over 200 medical, management and engineering students took out a rally to the busy Dak Bungalow Square. They blocked roads, disrupted traffic and shouted slogans.
In Ahmedabad, the junior doctors of three municipal corporation-run hospitals decided to go on strike from Wednesday. The junior doctors of a Vadodara hospital have joined the protests for 72 hours.
In Kolkata, about 2,500 medical students and interns brought traffic to a halt in many parts of the city by taking out processions, squatting and burning effigies, as anti-quota protests belatedly spread to the West Bengal capital.
Mumbai, however, saw a demonstration in favour of the quotas by around 5,000 people — including doctors from some leading hospitals and engineers.
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