Kolkata, Aug 29: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday asserted that she did not threaten junior doctors at state-run hospitals, who have been continuing cease-work for 21 days now to protest against the alleged rape and murder of a woman medic.
Banerjee said accusations that have come from certain quarters of her threatening the agitating junior doctors are “completely false” and part of a “malicious disinformation campaign”.
“Let me most emphatically clarify that I have not uttered a single word against the (medical etc.) students or their movements. I totally support their movement. Their movement is genuine. I never threatened them, as some people are accusing me of doing. This allegation is completely false,” she wrote on X.
Addressing a rally organised by the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad, Banerjee had on Wednesday urged the agitating junior doctors of Bengal to urgently consider returning to duty and said she doesn’t want to lodge FIRs against the striking doctors in consideration of their future careers.
Agitating doctors interpreted the chief minister’s remark as a “veiled threat” and rejected her appeal to join work.
Banerjee also wrote, “I have spoken against BJP. I have spoken against them because, with the support of the Government of India, they are threatening the democracy in our state and trying to create anarchy. With support from the Centre, they are trying to create lawlessness and I have raised my voice against them.”
The chief minister also issued a clarification with respect to her “snap back” message to her supporters against “the conspirators who need to be unmasked”.
Polygraph tests on
2 hospital guards
The CBI on Thursday conducted polygraph tests on two private guards employed at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, officials said. The guards were produced before a Kolkata court for getting their consent for the tests and after getting the court’s nod.
Altogether, 10 individuals have gone through the polygraph tests, including arrested accused Sanjay Roy, former principal of the medical college Sandip Ghosh, ASI of the Kolkata Police Anup Dutta, four doctors, and a volunteer of the Kolkata Police. (PTI)
