UP doctors’ strike enters 5th day, AIIMS doctors observe ‘black badge day’

Lucknow: As the strike by junior doctors entered fifth day on Tuesday, a high-level delegation from the Indian Medical Association (IMA) will meet President Pranab Mukherjee with an ultimatum to intensify the ongoing stir if justice is denied to them by Wednesday.

According to reports, the IMA members will inform the President about the police excesses against doctors and complain against Kanpur SSP Yashaswi Yadav.

The doctors went on strike after two dozen junior doctors in Kanpur were arrested following a scuffle with a Samajwadi Party (SP) legislator Irfan Solanki.

The IMA has threatened to extend the strike to other parts of the country if the issue is not sorted out at the earliest.

Meanwhile, resident doctors of AIIMS in Delhi have extended their support to the agitating doctors in Kanpur and are observing a ‘black badge day’.

Medical services across Uttar Pradesh have been badly affected with several medical colleges as well as private doctors across the state joining the stir, demanding release of 24 junior doctors of GSV Medical College and action against Yadav and the Samajwadi Party MLA.

Kanpur IMA president Aarti Lalchandani, who has been leading the charge against Solanki and Yadav, was on Monday booked by police on a complaint of inciting doctors for the strike.

Police also carried raids at her house. Lalchandani said the strike would not be called off until the 24 doctors are released without any conditions.

In Lucknow’s King George’s Medical university, agitating junior doctors locked the OPD to protest the incident and sat on a dharna at the university gate.

Meanwhile, AAP leaders Kumar Vishwas and Sanjay Singh have also extended their support to the agitation saying the party is with the doctors on the issue.

A clash broke out on Friday night between supporters of SP MLA Irfan Solanki and junior doctors of the GSV Medical college.

The clash occurred when the Aryanagar MLA objected to some junior doctors of the college allegedly misbehaving with an elderly person at the Medical College Square, SSP Yashasvi Yadav had said.