By our correspondent
A bomb scare in the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Imphal, on Wednesday resulted in a sit-in protest by medical students and staff of the Hospital. A Chinese made hand grenade was lobbed at the Out Patient Department two days ago.
The protesters have stated that medical institutions should not be targeted by insurgents in their violent campaign, as they provide health care to all irrespective of their standing in society.
President of the RIMS Nurses Association H. Tampha,, said the house and quarters of medical superintendent M. Amuba have been attacked on at least three occasions.
Interestingly an NGO, Akom Lup, however stated that the bomb scare was justified considering that there are serious corruption charges against senior medical doctors and administrators of RIMS.
But, targeting the entire institution for the venality of some doctors was not corrects said the RIMS director in charge, S. Rita who has been leading the protests for quite some time. Rita said that attacks on hospitals were refrained from even in war torn areas.
Owning responsibility for the latest bomb attack, the Kangleipak Communist Party (Military Joint Committee) said this was the last warning to institute director Rita, deputy director Y. Rajendra, and Dr M. Amuba, medical superintendent and said the institute employees should do some soul-searching before criticising the attacks.
The insurgents have been levelling serious charges of corruptions against the senior officials in the institute.
It may be mentioned that for over two years, there has been no regular director in RIMS that was established in 1972 for providing medical education to the students of the North Eastern states, excluding Assam.
No explanation is given as to why no regular director was appointed for two years.
It was only on Tuesday last that the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare issued an order Chongtham Arunkumar as director in charge for two months