Medicos Of The Calcutta Medical College Join Anti-Reservation Quota Protest

Medicos of the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital expressed their support to anti-reservation protests by blocking a national highway in the northern region of the State. West Bengal is therefore visualizing an intensification of the anti-reservation protest.

Barring the emergency department, services in the Calcutta Medical College came to a halt Wednesday as junior doctors and interns struck work against the central government's reservation policy in medical education.

‘We will continue to agitate and resort to strikes. On Thursday, the doctors of the Chittaranjan National Medical College and Hospital will cease work, except for emergency services,’ said Debojit, a junior doctor.

In north Bengal, the protests went beyond striking work. Students and interns of the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in Siliguri blocked National Highway 31 since morning, throwing traffic out of gear as thousands of vehicles got stranded.

‘The government used Taliban brutality to break the agitation. We will continue to protest except for maintaining emergency services,’ said student leader Sudipto Chattopadhayay.

The Burdwan Medical College also continued with their protests.

On Tuesday, about 2,500 medical students and interns brought traffic to a halt in many parts of Kolkata by taking out processions, squatting and burning effigies, as anti-quota protests belatedly spread to the West Bengal capital.

Students took out a mock funeral procession of Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh, carrying his effigy in a cot to downtown Esplanade area and later setting it ablaze.

The students also submitted a memorandum to West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi in Raj Bhavan.

The proposal to reserve 27 percent seats in central universities and higher educational institutions for other backward classes (OBCs) has sparked countrywide protests, especially from medical students in major cities.

Edited IANS