LAHORE: A sense of insecurity and uneasy calm prevailed at the King Edward Medical University and the attached Mayo Hospital after a `newly-emerged` group of young doctors misbehaved with the varsity`s vice chancellor and other senior faculty members on Tuesday.

Led by Dr Shaharyar Khan Niazi, the splinter group of the Young Doctors Association Punjab forcibly entered the office of KEMU ViceChancellor Prof Dr Faisal Masood when he was holding a talk with the senior teachers about the Senate meeting which was scheduled to be held the same day.

Professor of Medicine Dr IrshadHussain Qureshi and Professor of Surgery Dr Asghar Nagi were among those present on the occasion, a source told Dawn.

A day before visiting his office, he said, Dr Niazi shared his video footage on the social media provoking his colleagues against the KEMU vice chancellor and the health department officials for introducing the induction scheme.

He also held the YDA Punjab central leadership responsible for the programme.

According to a plan the young doctors occupied the corridor and other parts of the admin block (KEMU) in the morning and denied the staff and other visitors entry to the office of Prof Masood.

Dr Niazi is said to be the chairman of the group which works at the Mayo Hospital. The incidents of humiliation and torture of the attendants (of patients) have become a routine since he and his colleagues adopted an aggressiveapproach,the source said.

The misbehaviour with the KEMU VC and other doctors has anguished the faculty members.

He said declaring the KEMU VC `mastermind of the proposed Central Induction Policy for postgraduate trainees,` Dr Niazi and his aides exchanged harsh words with him.

Earlier, the source said, the activists of the same group had tortured attendants of some patients for lodging protest against alleged mistreatment at South and West Medical wards. They had also tortured the family of a pregnant woman, 19-year-old Sumbal, who died due to alleged negligence of doctors at the Lady Aitchison Hospital, he said.

He said the family had protested that Sumbal and her baby died af ter she was administered wrong medicine. Dr Niazi and his colleagues reached the hospital on the call of the duty doctors and subjected the members of the family to tortureafter locking them in a room, and also lodged criminal cases against them. Dr Zafarullah, the spokesman for the splinter group, said the KEMU vice chancellor deserved the treatment as he played a key role in introducing the Central Induction Policy. The young doctors, he said, would go to any extent to have the policy withdrawn.

Answering a question about frequent incidents of torture of attendants (of patients) and misbehaviour with the medical teachers, Dr Zafar said the young doctors were being forced to go for this strategy.

A source said the health department had decided to take action against those postgraduate trainees who are actively participating in the agitation against the induction policy. He said the department had issued directions to the quarters concerned to prepare a list of such medics to the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan for action against them.