Bihar doctors still on strike

Striking doctors in Bihar rejected an appeal by the state government to call off their stir on Sunday and decided to further intensify their...

Striking doctors in Bihar rejected an appeal by the state government to call off their stir on Sunday and decided to further intensify their agitation to protest the killing of a surgeon here even as health services across the state remained paralysed for the second day.

The Indian Medical Associations’s office-bearers at an emergency meeting here turned down the request of Chief Minister Rabri Devi to call off the agitation, IMA (Bihar Chapter) general secretary Sahajanand Singh said.

Singh said nearly 20,000 private and government doctors stayed away from work paralysing health services in Bihar. He demanded adequate security for medical practitioners across the state. N.K. Agrawal and his compounder were gunned down by extortionists at a private nursing home here on Saturday. Rabri Devi and Railway Minister Laloo Prasad said steps had already been taken by the state authorities for arresting the killers and called upon the IMA leaders to end the strike ‘‘in the larger interest of the state.’’ Revealing that the Bindu Singh gang was behind the killing, Laloo said the police was on the job to put the extortionists in jail. Bindu Singh is at presently lodged in judicial custody in Bhagalpur jail. — PTI