LARKANA: Doctors working at the Chandka Medical College Hospital (CMCH) and its affiliated health facilities continued their protest for a second day on Wednesday over an armed attack on their colleague on Monday.

Dr Partab Rai, the registrar at the CMCH paediatric department, was shot at and seriously wounded in his private clinic located on Bakrani Road by armed men.

Demanding immediate arrest of the culprits, doctors stayed away from their duties in the central OPD. On Tuesday, paramedics and other staff of the hospital complex also boycotted their duties causing great hardship to several hundred in-house and visiting patients.

Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) Larkana chapter on Wednesday held a general body meeting at the CMCH paediatrics surgery unit to condemn the incident.

PMA leaders Dr Shahbaig Chandio and Dr Ikram Tunio Professor, Chandka Medical College principal Khursheed Abbasi, Chandka Teachers Association (CTA) president Prof Badaruddin Junejo and others spoke at the meeting and expressed their concern over the growing sense of insecurity in the doctor community.

The meeting decided that besides continuing the boycott, the protesting doctors would also keep their private clinics closed on Thursday to press the government to ensure early arrest of the assailants, said Dr Tunio.

After their general body meeting, the participants carrying banners and placards raised slogans against the police and local administration and marched up to Jinnahbagh.

The District Hindu Panchayat (DHP) also organised a rally to condemn the attack on Dr Rai and demand immediate arrest of the killers. Local traders and businessmen also joined in the rally, led by DHP chief Kalpna Devi. The DHP endorsed the PMA protest plan and urged the chief minister and other elected representatives from Larkana to help get the culprits arrested.