There was mayhem at Kolkata’s R G Kar Medical College and Hospital on Wednesday midnight, as a mob of nearly 1,000 unidentified persons attacked the dais on which doctors were protesting, forcibly entered the hospital by breaking the gates and vandalised both the male and female emergency wards, emergency CCU and observation wing. They destroyed costly machines, medicine stocks, computers and cctv cameras. They also ransacked doctors’ changing room and police barracks. The violent mob also set fire to police vehicles. This sudden attack took place even as a huge crowd had gathered at night to join in a solidarity protest with the agitating doctors. Several protesters toppled police barricades set outside the hospital, and police had to fire tear gas shells and resort to lathicharge. Later, Kolkata Police commissioner Vineet Goyal accused the media of “running an incorrect, motivated and malicious campaign against the police”. The police chief claimed that his force was not trying to “save any person”. Trinamool Congress leader and Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee demanded that police must bring to book all those responsible for the midnight attack within 24 hours, “regardless of which party they belonged to”.
