GUWAHATI: There is no letup in the attacks on doctors in Assam.
A mob vandalised a government hospital and heckled and shoved a doctor after a man, who met with a road accident, was declared dead on arrival.
The incident was reported from Dudhnoi in Lower Assam’s Goalpara district.
Doctors’ body, Assam Medical Service Association (AMSA), condemned the incident and lodged an FIR with the police. However, no arrest has been made so far. The police said they were conducting a probe.
Three persons, injured in a road mishap, were brought to the hospital on Wednesday evening. After attending to them, a doctor on-duty declared one of them as brought dead. This led to the attack.
A fellow doctor said given the mood of the mob, he knew something ugly was in store.
“I had also checked the patient and found him dead on arrival. But they were not ready to accept this. Some of them soon started pushing and shoving me while others got into breaking hospital property. They would have attacked us but we were rescued by the police,” Dr. Apurba Boro said.
The three people were brought to the hospital when the other doctor was attending to two other persons, including a girl, who had met with an accident. One of them was found to be dead.
“The man was brought dead but they vandalised the hospital,” AMSA president Paresh Kalita told this newspaper.
This is bad for society. There should be a campaign against such attacks, he said.
The incident comes in less than a month after a 73-year-old doctor, Deben Dutta, was lynched by the workers of a tea estate in Upper Assam’s Jorhat district. The attack was perpetrated following the death of a youth at the garden hospital. In due course, at least seven doctors, employed in various tea estates, had resigned citing lack of security.