Two doctors attached to the Gajole rural hospital were accused of attending to their duties on Friday without going into quarantine after their return from home in North 24-Paraganas district, which is declared as a Covid-19 hotspot.

The Malda district health department asked Anjan Roy, the superintendent of the hospital, and Subrata Mukherjee to immediately go into quarantine for 14 days.

According to rules, anybody arriving from a different district should be in quarantine for 14 days.

Sources said the two doctors had reached Gajole on Thursday evening from Calcutta by car. While Roy had been to his home at Madhyamgram, Mukherjee was at Gobardanga. Both the places are located in North 24-Paraganas district.

The doctors were accompanied by a pharmacist and a technician, who are posted in the same hospital and belong to other places in south Bengal.

“The technician and the pharmacist voluntarily went into home quarantine. But the doctors were indifferent and joined their duties despite objections from some of their colleagues,” a source at the hospital said.

Local people had known that the doctors were near Calcutta in the past few days, but were in dark about their return.

But soon after the doctors were found in their chambers at the hospital, the people became agitated and launched protests. They also asked some patients, who had arrived to consult Roy and Mukherjee, to leave for their own safety.

“Soon after knowing that the doctors were practising instead of going into quarantine, the patients virtually fled,” an employee of the hospital said.

The doctors, however, denied that they had been to their residences. In the face of the fury shown by the local people, other employees of the hospital admitted that both the doctors had been to their homes for the past few days.

Bhushan Chakraborty, the chief medical officer of health, Malda, said: “Both the doctors have been asked to go under quarantine for two weeks. We are concerned about the health of the doctors as well as that of common people visiting the hospital.”