Police have registered criminal cases against seven junior doctors and medical students on Saturday in connection with violence in the Agartala medical college and hospital on Friday. 30 people, including nine journalists, were injured in the violent incidents in the hospital premises over a brawl following death of a patient.
The Tripura government, earlier, ordered a magisterial probe into the unprecedented violence in the State’s only referral hospital. Several meetings, including one chaired by Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, have been held since Friday evening to discuss actions and measures.
Attacks on women
Political parties, human rights and social organisations, journalist bodies and the Tripura Commission for Women have vehemently condemned the incident and demanded stern action against guilty medicos. The Commission for Women has taken a strong exception to the ‘outrageous attacks’ on women accompanying patients during violence in the hospital.
The journalists and press photographers were targeted when they went to the hospital campus to cover the incidents. Nine journalists were injured and the condition of one remained grim. Media organisations decided to organise a squatting stir in Agartala on Sunday to express solidarity with the victim journalists. They earlier set 24 hours’ deadline to the State government for arrest of attackers.
“We would not budge till the government acts against the perpetrators. The journalists went to the spot only to discharge their professional obligation,” Debasis Majumder, Secretary of Tripura Working Journalists Association, said in a statement.
The police have collected still photographs and video footages to identify those involved in the violence.
Tense situation
The police, however, restrained from arresting the students in view of the prevailing tension in hospital campus. A senior police officer, who is involved in the investigation, said persons named in the FIR would be taken into custody at an “appropriate time.”
Meanwhile, some 700 junior doctors and medical interns at the medical college hospital have called off their strike on the persuasion of senior doctors. Normal medical services were severely hit due to the strike called on Friday afternoon to demand adequate security in hospital and medical college.
