Junior doctors on Friday issued a threat: Either the state government accepts all their demands by Monday or they would shut down Bengal’s healthcare system, both government and private, on Tuesday.

The doctors also put the ball in the chief minister’s court, saying she has to sit down for talks with them.

The threat of a “healthcare dharmaghat (strike)” was made around 9pm after a nearly three-hour meeting between junior doctors and senior doctors at Medical College Kolkata.

It was not clear immediately if emergency or essential services too would be part of the dharmaghat.

The Supreme Court had earlier taken a dim view of doctors striking work for long periods. But the doctors put the onus on the government.

Debashis Halder, one of the faces of the doctors’ protests, said: “If anything happens to any patient because of the bandh, the state government will be responsible.”

Halder added that they wanted the chief minister to “come for talks and accept all our demands”.

Earlier, while going into the meeting, Halder said the junior doctors felt the chief secretary and other officials were “powerless” and only the chief minister could end the impasse.

“We have met the chief secretary and other officials. We feel they are powerless. Only the chief minister can solve this. But we are not getting any reaction from the chief minister. We knew of a humane CM (chief minister). Junior doctors have been fasting and their health is failing,” said Halder, a junior doctor at Medical College Kolkata.

After the meeting, he said: “We will be forced to go for a bandh in government as well as private health care on Tuesday if the government does not accept our demands by then. We are giving the government time till Monday.

“Many will say we are against the patients but we are not. This is why we ended our cease-work and went back to work.”

Halder said the junior doctors felt the government could have accepted nine of their ten demands - demands 2 to 10 - “within 10 minutes” if it so wished.

The first of their 10 demands is justice for the 31-year-old doctor of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital who was raped and murdered on August 9. The CBI, which does not work under the state government, is probing the rape and murder under the Supreme Court’s watch.

“We know the chief minister as humane. But we have not heard any reaction from her. We are sad, and angry, and cannot express our feelings in words. She has not reacted,” Halder said.

The plea for talks with the chief minister and the strike threat came on a day when diverse voices emerged among doctors.

At least two senior doctors said talks were the “only way” to end the impasse.