Doctors and politicians here are heading for a showdown after a doctor allegedly misbehaved with a 22-year-old woman patient at his nursing home, following which her kin assaulted him.

The molestation charge was levelled against Dr Mrityunjay Kumar, associate professor of surgery at the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital and owner, Tapeshwari Nursing Home in Adampur. The alleged incident took place on October 31 at Mrityunjay’s nursing home after which he absconded. An FIR was lodged the same day.

Now, the local unit of the BJP has called for a daylong bandh on Thursday while the local chapter of Indian Medical Association has threatened to boycott health services in the district. The state chapter of IMA, however, did not say it was going on strike. Doctors said they only wanted a high-level probe. Some student bodies, social organisations and individuals are also critical of the doctor.

Deban Pandey, spokesperson of the BJP’s Bhagalpur unit, alleged the police were unnecessarily delaying the doctor’s arrest.

“Bhagalpur police recently created a record by submitting a chargesheet within 10 hours of arresting the accused in a rape cape. Why are the same police silent in this case even six days after the incident,” Pandey asked.

But local IMA members have started sporting black badges from Wednesday, claiming the incident was a well-planned conspiracy against doctors. The local IMA unit met on Tuesday to discuss strategies. “If the police arrest the doctor without proper investigation, doctors associated with the local IMA unit would go on strike. However, emergency services in both government and private hospitals would be exempted from the strike,” said Dr. D P Singh, president of the Bhagalpur unit of IMA.

Doctors associated with the state chapter of IMA met director-general of police (DGP) Pramod Kumar Thakur on Wednesday evening and asked him to initiate proper probe instead of taking direct action against the doctor. “The doctor concerned has a good record. The molestation charge is false and baseless. Today, we met the DGP and requested him not to arrest the doctor on false allegations. The DGP assured us a fair probe would be conducted in this case. He told us a separate committee has been constituted to probe the matter,” said Sahjananad Prasad Singh, a member of state chapter of IMA.