New Delhi, Dec 31: The striking junior doctors in Delhi have called-off their strike and have resumed their work from 12 pm Friday.
The doctors said that the strike was called off following a series of meetings between the agitating medicos and Delhi Police that happened on Thursday. Incidents of December 27 were discussed wherein the resident doctors had accused the police of brutally manhandling them while detaining the protesting resident doctors.
“Last evening we met the Joint CP of Delhi. The Delhi police have initiated the process of quashing the FIR. Joint CP has also sent a video message to rebuild the trust between the doctors and the police, Dr Manish, Federation Of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA), said.
On Monday, hundreds of resident doctors were detained at ITO while they were marching to the Supreme Court to press for their demand of expediting in NEET PG 2021 counselling.
The doctors alleged brutal use of force by the Police while being detained. They said many of the agitating residents were thrashed, pushed and abused while in police detention. The female medicos also alleged that they were manhandled by male police staff.
Subsequently, an FIR was lodged against the doctors under different sections of IPC including damage to the public property. The FIR mentioned that seven of the policemen got hurt while taking the doctors into custody.
The doctors had given a call for the march to the apex court after their month-long agitation to expedite the counselling of NEET PG 2021 qualifiers was not accepted by the Centre.
The resident doctors from major hospitals here run by the Centre and Delhi government were on strike for the last 15 days with a demand to expedite the counselling of NEET PG 2021 qualifiers, a move that will add around 50,000 doctors to the government hospitals across India.
Meanwhile, the agitation spread across the country. Many key government hospitals across India had also shut down their OPD and emergency services to show support to the agitation.
Patient care in Delhi was affected for 12 days as the resident doctors boycotted all services, including emergency, as part of the nationwide agitation called by FORDA.
However, after receiving assurances from the Union Health Ministry and due to several other reasons including the loss to patient care, the strike was called off on Friday, a statement from FORDA said.
Several petitions, challenging the EWS quota in the All India Quota (AIQ) for the NEET PG 2021 counselling, are pending with the Supreme Court. The doctors had demanded that the counselling and admission process be accelerated. The SC will hear the matter on January 6.
