Junior docs end hunger strike though Mamata refuses to hear complaints

Protesting junior doctors in West Bengal today announced the withdrawal of their 17-day-old hunger-strike after a two-hour meeting with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at Nabanna, the State secretariat.

- SUPROTIM MUKHERJEE

Seventeen representatives of the protesting junior doctors arrived at Nabanna on Monday evening to meet Mamata Banerjee in an effort to resolve the ongoing impasse following the rape-murder of an on-duty woman medical student at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. However, the two-hour meeting stumbled on a discordant note when the Chief Minister refused to hear any complaints of corruption levelled by the junior doctors against Narayan Swaroop Nigam, the Principal Secretary of the Health Department. However, late in the evening, the junior doctors decided to end their 17-day hunger-strike. "The body language of the State Government representatives was not positive and we are not happy," said Debasish Halder, announcing the junior doctors' decision.