Medicos strike enters day 10

New Delhi, May 23 (UNI) A day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appealed to doctors and medical students to call off their agitation, the indefinite strike on the controversial OBC reservation continued on the tenth day today.

Medical services in Delhi's five premier hospitals continued to be paralysed as the talks between the Government and the medicos remained inconclusive.

Heavy deployment of police and Rapid Action Force has been done in and around AIIMS where the medical students started the indefinite hunger strike on May 13.

Since more than 130 of the fasting 180 medical students had had taken ill more students have joined in. As many as 125 students are now on an indefinite hunger strike at AIIMS.

''We will not give up now... Many of out students have to be removed due to health reasons but more people are joining in and this will go on,'' Dr Anirudh Lochan, a spokesman for 'Youth for Equality', which is spearheading the agitation, told UNI.

He said the stalemate over the proposal of 27 per cent reservation to OBC in higher educational institutions was protracting because the Government was adopting a rigid stand on the issue.

''The Government has taken a very rigid stance on the issue.

It is not coming out with any new proposals for us to consider...

We are ready to come half way provided the other side also does the same,'' he added.

''The stalemate is totally the Government's responsibility.

Our stand is clear... the ball is in its court now,'' he said.

Yesterday the Prime Minister asked the medicos to resume duty and said he would look into GoM report on the matter in all its dimensions and come out with a comprehensive road map for the resolution of the issue.

The Prime Minister's appeal was of little value since it ''makes no mention of our demands'', Dr Lochan said.

The students and doctors have already held two rounds of talks with Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee- headed Group of Ministers.

The striking doctors and students have been demanding complete roll-back of the Government's proposal of 27 per cent reservation for OBC in higher educational institutions besides setting up of a non-political judicial committee to review the existing reservation policy.

The doctors and medical students of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Safdarjang, Guru Tegh Bahadur, Maulana Azad and the Lok Nayak Jaiprakash Narain Hospitals are on strike.

Resident and Junior doctors of Deen Dayal Upadhyay, Ram Manohar Lohia, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Ihbas hospitals had also joined the stir.

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