Striking medicos stage sit-in near interview venues

New Delhi, May 24: Striking doctors and medical students today staged peaceful sit-in demonstrations outside hospitals where walk- in interviews were being held to recruit retired and junior doctors to normalise medical services crippled due to the agitation.

They were appealing to the candidates to not become a ''tool'' in the hands of the government to weaken the agitation and help it restore the severely-hit hospital services.

Waving placards with messages -- 'Don't Stab us in the Back' and 'Join Your Agitating Brethren'-- the agitating doctors and students had gathered at Safdarjung Hospital and Delhi government's Deen Dayal Upadhayaya, Gobind Ballab Pant, Guru Teg Bahadur and Lok Nayak hospitals.

At Safdarjung Hospital, Senior consultants refused to hold the interviews, saying the faculty was opposed to such ''provocative steps by the government''.

The agitating doctors and students said they will dash all such ''tactics'' of the government to tide over the crisis arising out of the eleven day long-strike by them.

They claimed that most of the candidates had been convinced not to appear for the interviews.

''We are appealing to the candidates not to appear for the interviews and join us.... We all are from the same fraternity and we should be united in this hour of crisis,'' said Dr Manisha Aggarwal at GTB hospital.

Dr Anirudh Lochan, leader of 'Youth for Equality' which is spearheading the agitation, said after yesterday's decision, the government will not be allowed to weaken the agitation by such pressure tactics.

''The government stabbed us in the back.... It is going ahead with its plan to implement 27 per cent OBC reservation without considering our demands. We will make our agitation more intense now,'' he said.

''The government had assured us during negotiation that there will be an increase in the number of seats and institutions to implement the OBC reservation in a phased manner but even that had not been considered in its decision,'' he said.

He said the government had an opportunity to resolve the contentious issue in an amicable way, but now it has lost that opportunity and it will be responsible for the consequences.

The striking doctors and students have been demanding complete roll-back of the proposal for 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in higher education 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 Upadhyaya, Ram Manohar Lohia, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Ihbas hospitals had also joined the stir.

UNI