Boots, sticks for medical interns

LUCKNOW: The district police cane charged medical interns at Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj Medical University here on Tuesday. The students were sitting outside the medical university's administrative block to stress on their long pending demand of increasing their internship amount from existing payband of Rs 1600-1950 to at least Rs 8,900. The planned strike was supported by social activists Sandeep Pandey and SR Darapuri.It also saw representation from the state ayurvedic and homeopathic colleges.
As per the plan, the sit-in was to be held at two places. While the one at CSMMU campus was to be spearheaded by the interns' joint action committee, Sandeep Pandey and others were to stage the demonstration at the Shaheed Smarak. Administrative officers Prof SN Sankhwar, Prof Narsingh Verma and chief proctor Prof Abbas Ali Mahdi tried to convince the students but they refused to buy any argument.
The course of events took an ugly turn at around noon with students raising anti-administration and anti-government slogans to draw the attention of the authorities.
In a few minutes, the students were joined by the group headed by Sandeep Pandey. According to eye-witnesses, seeing the veteran leaders, the rising decibels of anti-system slogans rose up. This made the police, which was informed and deployed from beforehand, pitch in and control the situation. But the students remained undeterred. "One of the students was slapped by a cop which agitated the entire lot," recalled a doctor present at the site. "The agitated students resorted to stone-pelting thus inviting police action," he added.
The hour long tug of war between students and police ended with the arrest of over 160 students including the leaders Sandeep Pandey and Anshuman Bhartendu.
Talking to reporters, deputy inspector general, Lucknow, Rajeev Krishna said, "the students were arrested under relevant sections of law for breach of peace. They were allowed to go in the evening."
CSMMU administration, however, maintained that majority of the protesting students were outsiders and had little support from interns of CSMMU. When asked to comment, chief medical superintendent, prof SN Shankhwar said, "We are very clear in this matter, any student who misses his/her internship will have to compensate it which may delay his/her academic session and eventually miss the post graduate medical entrance exams. We have asked for a list of interns who have missed their duties today."