The North 24-Parganas administration cracked down on a nursing home in Basirhat on Saturday after it emerged that its owners, a doctor couple, had performed at least two Caesarean-section deliveries and also treated patients after returning from coronavirus-affected US on Friday.

The couple were put under forced home quarantine on Saturday by a team of police and civil officials. Their blood and sputum samples have been sent for tests to Calcutta and the reports are awaited.

Later in the day residents protested in front of the home of the doctor couple, both senior gynaecologists.

The chairman of Basirhat municipality, Tapan Sarkar, said the civic body would cancel the licence of the nursing home. “This is an unpardonable offence, especially because they are doctors. We will cancel the licence of their nursing home. We are shifting the patients elsewhere,” he said. Only the two new mothers and their newborns have been kept in the nursing home for now.

The municipality has begun the process of identifying the patients who received treatment from the couple.

The couple returned from the US, where they had gone to visit relatives, on Friday morning and went to the nursing home later in the day. They performed at least two C-section surgeries and also attended to several patients.

Some doctor colleagues of the couple informed the authorities about the duo. The chief medical officer of health of Basirhat, Debabrata Mukherjee, sent a team to the nursing home to speak to the doctor couple and advise them immediate medical examination. A team of Basirhat police personnel also arrived at the nursing home.

Sources said the couple had initially refused any check-up, even not agreeing to proceed to home isolation.