Government Blames Mamata Banerjee As Doctors' Protest Spreads

Scores of doctors across several states have boycotted work for a day to express solidarity with their protesting colleagues in West Bengal. Doctors in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Jaipur Thiruvananthapuram and other places staged protests, hampering medical services in various towns and cities. Doctors at Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) were seen wearing helmets and bandages as they attended to patients. The Bengal doctors have been on a strike since Tuesday, after a junior doctor was assaulted at a government-run hospital in Kolkata by the relatives of a patient who died. The doctors defied Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's ultimatum, saying they won't get back to work until they get better security. Mamata Banerjee has accused the BJP and the CPM of engineering the strike and playing "Hindu-Muslim politics". Urging the doctors to hold only symbolic protests, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, who met the doctors, blamed Mamata Banerjee and said it is her "threat" to the doctors in her state that led to the nationwide protests.