AGARTALA / NEW DELHI, June 14 (TIWN): Attack on Doctor at Bengal has now sparked the protests in Tripura. A massive protest was staged by doctors here today along with the whole nation. Attacks on doctors have spread like a disease in the country led the doctors across the nation to go on enmass protest. The doctors' strike that started in Kolkata earlier this week has now spread across India with the doctors' association of AIIMS showing full support to their West Bengal colleagues. In the wake of a reported assault on doctors at a hospital in Kolkata, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has directed the members of all its state branches to stage protests and wear black badges on Friday. After entire healthcare system in West Bengal was crippled over the past four days, now doctors' in Delhi, Mumbai and other cities in India especially AIIMS hospitals in the national capital, Raipur, Patna and Punjab are observing protest shutdown.

Resident doctors in several government hospitals in Kerala and Hyderabad also staged protests as they started their 'cease work' demonstrations in respective cities.  Around 4,500 Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) stopped attending to patients in all the 26 government hospitals in the state simultaneously on Friday. 

On the other side, the Calcutta High Court has refused to pass any interim order on the strike by junior doctors at state-run hospitals in protest against the attack on two of their colleagues by family members of a patient. Doctors in major metro cities, including Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai, are on protest in solidarity with counterparts in Kolkata where a standoff is underway between the Mamata Banerjee government and junior doctors. 

A division bench comprising Chief Justice TBN Radhakrishnan and Justice Suvra Ghosh asked the state government to persuade the striking doctors to resume work and provide usual services to patients.