Cooch Behar, Jan. 3: Private ambulance owners, who had started an indefinite strike on Tuesday to protest against “police harassment”, today withdrew the agitation. The strike followed the Cooch Behar district administration’s decision barring private ambulances from parking on the premises of Maharaja Jitendra Narayan Hospital.

The ambulance drivers also agreed to carry identity cards issued by their organisation and “behave properly” with doctors, hospital staff and relatives of the patients while parking their vehicles.

The subivisional officer of Cooch Behar, Jayanta Maity, who had convened a meeting to resolve the impasse,said the administration had been receiving complaints against ambulance operators from various quarters. “The drivers are often drunk and misbehave with people on the hospital premises,” he said.

The district patient welfare committee had recently decided to stop the parking of the private ambulances on the hospital campus. The hospital authorities executed the decision on Tuesday, sparking off protests by the ambulance operators, Maity said.

Pranesh Dhar, the president of Cooch Behar district private ambulance service workers’ union, however, claimed that none of their members was involved in unruly behaviour. He alleged that some “outsiders” were behind such mischief.