Meeting to thaw doc-lawyer tension

Statesman News Service

MALDA, Dec. 14: The Malda district magistrate Mr CR Das will convene a meeting on Saturday with doctors, lawyers, police and government pleader to sort out the ongoing tension between doctors and lawyers following an incident in Malda district hospital. The hospital doctors and the bar association, are at loggerheads over the issue of the district hospital and both of them threatened to ‘cease work’ in their sectors demanding settlement.The lawyers are demanding punishment of the doctor TK Das and the doctors are demanding the lawyer will have to withdraw the FIR against the doctor. The district magistrate today discussed the matter with Malda SP and government pleader. The Malda DM, Mr CR Das held a meeting with the lawyers and doctors on Wednesday and Thursday respectively just to know the stand and attitude against each other. “If the doctors and lawyers cannot come down from their stand it would be difficult to sort the problem. We are trying to sort out the problem holding a meeting with the lawyers and doctors and other concerned officials,” said Das.It may be noted that on 3 December the district authorities had lodged a complaint against a lawyer Iqbal Hossian who allegedly assaulted a pediatrician Dr TK Das. Trouble broke out after the death of a baby in the Malda district hospital. Police had arrested the lawyer Mr Hossain. The lawyer got bail from the court on that day.But in protest against the complaint lodged against the lawyer the bar association had decided to lodge another complaint against the doctor and other staff of the hospital on the charge of assaulting the lawyer. Based on the complaints lodged by the lawyers police arrested two contractual cleaning staffs of the hospital. The lawyers begun cease work so that nobody could move for bail. As a result the contractual workers led by the local CPI-M leaders started cease work in Malda district hospital demanding release of their two colleagues. Finally the duo were released on personal bond according to the order of the chief judicial magistrate. But the tension between the lawyers and doctors still continues.