Thaindian News

New Delhi, July 12 (IANS) Doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here Tuesday continued their indefinite hunger protest demanding reinstatement of a former resident brain surgeon who was cleared of charges of harassing a boy under his treatment.

“This is the second day of our hunger protest and we are not budging till the terminated doctor is brought back to service,” Debajyoti Karmakar, president of the Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA), told IANS.

“You cannot punish someone when even the law has proved him not guilty,” he added.

Shejoy P. Joshua, a brain surgeon with AIIMS, was suspended Feb 3 after the relatives of an eight-year-old boy being treated by him complained that the physician had sodomised the child in his room.

The junior resident doctor was accused of molesting the boy, a resident of northeast Delhi who was admitted to the neurosurgery ward for a brain tumour operation Jan 18.

A police investigation detected gaps and ambiguities in the accusations against the physician, who was then given a clean chit.

“We want the AIIMS administration to allow immediate reinstatement of Joshua,” Karmakar said.

Around 200 doctors have joined the protest even as the RDA continued to garner more support by distributing pamphlets in the sprawling campus of the premier health institute.

The physicians said services at AIIMS would not be hit as the protest is “silent hunger protest”.

“We are on a hunger protest and treating patients. The administration has come to us for talks but we are not going to settle by any time-buying activities,” Karmakar said.