WE THE junior doctors of Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH), Patna, are peacefully protesting against the manhandling and assault by a few media people on Thursday (June 5). Since the issue involves the media, we doctors are being projected as criminals and non-bailable arrest warrants have been issued against 12 of our friends. In this hour of crisis, we are desperate as nobody intends to know the other side of the story, not even the government. So we are trying to project our story by the only means we can.

Let me tell you what really happened:

• Few reporters from two local Hindi newspapers came to the orthopedics emergency on Thursday around one pm. They entered the duty room as attenders of a patient and started asking few questions. But the patient was not yet brought to the hospital. Our colleagues clarified that without examining the patient we cannot help you. They got agitated and started using abusive language. The doctors asked the security guards to intervene but these people started fighting with the guard. While the doctors were trying to calm the situation, an accomplice of theirs was photographing the whole episode from the window.
• The whole sting operation was preplanned and these media people executed it brilliantly of which we didn’t have a clue till we saw the photographer.
• When we questioned the lensman he said, “Even your father cannot stop me from taking pictures, you mind your own business.” Of course, he used such derogatory language, which we cannot write here. When we protested they ran away from the scene.
• We started working normally after the whole episode only to realise after an hour that a mob of 200-250 media people and locals have surrounded the emergency with lethal weapons. They entered the emergency and assaulted three of our colleagues very badly. Other doctors on duty somehow escaped from the mob by hiding in sterilisation room and called all the other junior doctors for help.
• The mob started pelting stones on other buildings of the hospital and damaged vehicles belonging to the doctors. When other doctors came to the emergency to help, they were also beaten up. Then the mob targetted the gynaec department and misbehaved with our female colleagues.
• They blocked the road in front of the college and started throwing stones in the PMCH campus.
• The next day the newspapers printed a completely different story that junior doctors have assaulted the lensman and broken the camera. The whole story was twisted and presented in a way, which implicated us as the real culprits and criminals. They filed an FIR against twelve of us and pressurised the government till the court issued an arrest warrant against the doctors.
• The government, the general public and everyone is convinced about the story presented by the media. The government is not ready to talk with us. They want to arrest innocent doctors and want us to stop our protest.
• Our innocent friends have been suspended from the institute following the governmental pressure. The government, on its part, has not even tried to know the facts of the event.

I hope that more and more people will come out in our support.