Over 200 junior doctors, interns, and MBBS students attached to the College of Medicine and JNM Hospital in Kalyani staged a sit-in demonstration in front of the emergency section on Friday, demanding a police outpost on the hospital premises after a doctor was allegedly assaulted by the family of a patient who was injured in an accident earlier in the morning.

The demonstration, which continued for about seven and half hours starting from 10.30am, was withdrawn only after Nadia district officials assured the deputation of police personnel inside the hospital. Protesters, however, issued a two-day deadline for implementing the assurance.

Later on Friday, police officials acting upon a complaint by assaulted doctors began a case and arrested two relatives of the patient.

Salman Halder, a final-year MBBS student and the students’ union secretary, said, “Doctors are assaulted at the hospital on a number of occasions and the administration merely use words to pacify us. But nothing has so far been done in reality. Today, SDO Kalyani assured us of deploying police personnel immediately to ensure security. We, on the basis of his assurance, withdrew the demonstration temporarily but will consider resuming unless the assurances are fulfilled.”

Sources said a commotion broke out at about 10am when Moinuddin Mondal, 28, a resident of Ghoragacha village of Kalyani, was brought to the emergency section of the hospital after being injured in a road accident.

Family members subsequently reportedly jostled doctors that were attending to his sutures.