The Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday transferred Kanpur SSP Yashaswi Yadav even as junior doctors here demanded stricter action against the police officer and continued their strike for the sixth day.
The protesting doctors in Kanpur, however, ended their strike on Thursday morning, a day after the Allahabad High Court intervened in the matter and the State invoked the Essential Services and Maintenance Act (ESMA) against them.
Acting on the High Court's instructions, the State constituted a one-member inquiry commission under Retd. Judge Justice R. M Chauhan, who has three weeks to submit a report.
The report's term of reference seeks facts about the incident, causes, steps taken by the officials, fixing of accountability and suggestion of steps to prevent recurrences of such incidents.
Meanwhile, representatives of the IMA met SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav on Wednesday night and declared that all protesting doctors would return to work from Thursday and emergency and OPD services, which were halted due to the strike, will also be restored in the government hospitals and medical colleges.
The SSP Kanpur has been transferred to the DGP's office in Lucknow while the state has also released 24 junior doctors who were arrested in Kanpur in connection with the clash with SP MLA Irfan Solanki and his supporters.
Mr. Solanki, who is at the centre of the controversy, claimed that his "intervention" at the medical college in Kanpur on February 28 was to "prevent any incident of communal tension" in the city.
Mr. Solanki said the clash started when he objected to some junior doctors of GVSM College allegedly misbehaving with an elderly person near the college.
"I sent my gunners to go and settle the dispute. The man seemed to be from a rural area and was wearing a skull cap. So I assumed he was Muslim. My intention was to prevent any communal tension because if the man's identity was made public it could have led to a volatile situation," he told The Hindu.
Mr. Solanki adds: "But the doctors tried to snatch the carbines of my gunners and started thrashing them. Soon 400-500 doctors assembled. I was also manhandled by the doctors."
The doctors, however, alleged that Mr. Solanki used his influence to get them thrashed by the police.
Controversy is not new for Mr. Solanki, who was arrested in June 2011 for allegedly misbehaving with a woman IAS officer of the state power department. He was then booked for rioting, obstructing public servants in discharge of public functions, assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace and criminal intimidation. In 2012, his supporters clashed with the police in Faridabad after his car was stopped for using tinted glass.
The two-time MLA is the son of Haji Mushtaq Solanki, who was the MLA from Kanpur twice, 1996 and 2002. Considered influential in the region and close to SP supremo Mulayam Singh, Mr. Solanki is engaged in the leather tannery business.
He 'apologised' for the deaths of the patients due to the doctors strike and said he had "faith" in the judicial enquiry.
The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court on Thursday directed the government to register any FIR given by a medical student against the SP MLA or police personnel and said all these cases shall be personally supervised by UP DGP.
The Court also said that departmental inquiry shall be initiated against all police officers found guilty of atrocities and they shall be made to compensate the victims through their salaries.
