Students continue stir against quota

New Delhi: Though resident doctors and interns resumed duties in Delhi hospitals on Friday, medical students boycotted classes.

Students of five medical colleges are going to meet in their respective institutes to decide the next step in their agitation against the proposed increase in quota by the Human Resource Development Minister, Arjun Singh.

On Thursday, the students took to the streets against the move to increase quota for OBCs in higher educational institutions.

After a meeting with Arjun Singh, they agreed to return to their colleges, but to keep up the pressure on the government, scaled down protests are continuing at India Gate.

"The situation at the hospital today is completely normal. All resident doctors and interns have come back to work," Additional Medical Superintendent of LNJP Hospital Dr M S Chopra said.

"We are not politicians. We are students. Arjun Singh (Union HRD Minister) spoke to us as a politician and, in fact, had nothing satisfactory to say on the issue. Our dilemma on the issue continues," said Sujit Sinha of Vardhaman Mahavir Medical College.

The students, who have threatened to launch a nationwide campaign if their demands were not met, gathered at the India Gate lawns to protest against the proposal to increase quota for the backward castes in institutes of higher

learning.

Junior doctors in Bangalore pledged their support by holding a protest sit-in at Victoria Hospital, Bangalore. They are on a hunger strike till 1700 hours IST on Friday.

They have called for nationwide protests against the proposed quota in PG medical courses.

The students said they will continue to boycott classes and hold demonstrations "till the Government comes clean" on the controversial reservation issue.

Holding demonstrations, observing fast and wearing black badges to places of work, medicos in

Lucknow, Bangalore and Kolkata also came out in support of their counterparts in Delhi in protesting against the Centre's proposed move to hike OBC quotas in educational institutions.

Expressing solidarity with their counterparts in Delhi, undergraduate medical students from a government medical college Bangalore observed a day-long fast, while medicos at the K G Medical University in Lucknow wore black badges to work.

In Kolkata, over 200 interns and junior doctors of the state-run Chittaranjan National Medical College held a protest demonstration inside the campus and marched to the principal's office to submit a memorandum to register their protest against the proposed move.

(With inputs from PTI)