The authorities of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital have barred 51 junior doctors and students from entering the campus and formed a committee to probe charges of intimidation against them.
The 51 include interns, MBBS students, housestaff, a research scientist and two senior residents.
The resident doctors’ association of the hospital handed a letter of complaint against these 51 persons to the authorities during a special council meeting of the medical college on Monday.
The association alleged that these 51 junior doctors and students were promoting “a culture of intimidation, endangering the democratic atmosphere of the institution”.
The RG Kar authorities had asked the 51 doctors and students to appear before an inquiry committee on Wednesday. But one of the medics whose name is on the list said the committee did not conduct any hearing on Wednesday.
A notice issued by the authorities of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on Monday mentioned that “access to the institution’s campus” would be restricted for these accused junior doctors unless summoned by the Enquiry Committee. Besides, their “participation in college activities is prohibited”.
A junior doctor who was summoned on Wednesday to face the committee told Metro that the panel did not sit during the day. “Many of those named and summoned came and went. We signed on an attendance sheet. We were told that the committee will call us again,” he said.
“Is it believable that 51 doctors and students went around and threatened all others? What kind of threat did we give and to whom? Where is the evidence that we have threatened others? We are being targeted and there is a witch-hunt that is going on,” said an accused doctor.
RG Kar officials were unavailable for comments. Calls from this newspaper to Saptarshi Chatterjee, medical superintendent-cum-vice-principal of RG Kar, went unanswered.
A member of the resident doctors’ association said the 51 junior doctors and students ran a reign of terror on the campus and enjoyed the blessings of former RG Kar principal Sandip Ghosh, who was arrested by the CBI on September 2 in connection with the alleged financial irregularities at the medical college.
It was during Ghosh’s tenure as principal that a junior doctor was raped and murdered at RG Kar.