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Medicos intensify anti-quota stir
INTENSIFYING THEIR anti-reservation protest, medicos of the Moti Lal Nehru Medical College took out a rally from the medical college crossing on Thursday. They forcibly closed the OPD at SRN Hospital and shouted anti-reservation slogans. Tying black ribbons as a mark of protest, the students also threatened to paralyse emergency services. The rally passed through Subhash crossing in Civil Lines and concluded at the medical college.
INTENSIFYING THEIR anti-reservation protest, medicos of the Moti Lal Nehru Medical College took out a rally from the medical college crossing on Thursday.
They forcibly closed the OPD at SRN Hospital and shouted anti-reservation slogans. Tying black ribbons as a mark of protest, the students also threatened to paralyse emergency services.
The rally passed through Subhash crossing in Civil Lines and concluded at the medical college. The students were holding placards through which they urged the Union HRD Minister Arjun Singh not to divide them on the quota issue. They also burnt an effigy of Arjun Singh at Subhash crossing to show their resentment against the reservation policy.
Later, a meeting was held in which students have decided to continue their struggle against the government’s proposed reservation policy. However, the OPD was resumed late in the afternoon on the request of some senior doctors.
Dr Sunil Kumar Shukla said they have decided to participate in the torchlight procession organised by the Allahabad Medical Association late this evening.
“Agitation will continue till our demands are met by the government,” he said.
“We have dropped the plan to run parallel OPD since emergency service was already being provided to the patients,” he informed.
Former Junior Doctors’ Association president Dr Phul Kumar said a difference of opinion among their colleagues over the quota issue was quite shocking.
They had worked in complete harmony before this proposed reservation policy.
Moreover, the doctors perform best when they work in a team, he added.
Doctors who participated in the meeting included Neeraj, newly elected JDA president, Apoorva Mittal vice-president, Manoj Dubey and Ajay Dwivedi.
Meanwhile, student of Allahabad University agitating against the anti-reservation issue took out a procession and staged a dharna at Subhash Square here on Thursday. The students expressed determination to check implementation of OBC quota by any means.
AU student leader Abhishek Shukla said the reservation had been opposed by the masses. The statement of HRD Minister Arjun Singh had widened the gap between different sections of the society. He urged the team constituted by the prime minister to take notice of the nationwide protests by students against the reservation.
Several other student leaders expressed resentment over the move to implement reservation in higher education. The student leaders urged the citizens to support the pre-scheduled dharna against reservation at district headquarters on Friday.
Those present were Shartool Samrat Singh, Om Prakash Dwivedi, Irshad Ullah, Umesh Upadhyay, Deepak Shukla, Shazid Khan, Yunus Khan, Vivek Mishra and Sujit Pandey.
Meanwhile, students led by AUU vice-president Brijendra Kumar Mishra submitted a memorandum to Divisional Commissioner Dr Lalit Verma against lathicharge by the policemen over medicos protesting against reservation.
Varanasi
NORMAL MEDICAL services at Sir Sunderlal Hospital in Banaras Hindu University were affected as the indefinite anti-reservation strike of undergraduate and postgraduate students of Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS-BHU) entered its third day here on Thursday.
Around 80 per cent beds of almost all the wards were almost deserted.
There were only three patients in the 40-bedded emergency ward of SS Hospital at 11.30 am. Senior consultants could perform only emergency operations due to the protest strike. Besides, OPD and emergency services, the intensive care unit (ICU) and coronary care unit (CCU) were also affected.
The inflow of patients has adversely been affected due to media reports about the ongoing protest agitation. As a result of the medicos’ strike, very few patients were seen at out patients department (OPD) wards of urology, paediatrics, medicine, gynaecology, surgery and other wings today.
Basti
SAWARN LIBERATION Front workers burnt Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh’s effigy here in protest against the move to reserve seats for other backward castes in Central institutes of higher education.
