Asif, one of the junior doctors at Patna Medical College and Hospital who locked himself up in an operating theatre after residents attacked doctors around 7.45pm on Sunday, recounted his experience to The Telegraph.

We were in the emergency wing when I heard of an altercation between attendants and a few junior doctors over a patient's death. I was in the orthopaedic emergency next to the medical emergency wing where the incident occurred.

The patient had drowned and was declared brought dead by the doctors but the attendants were not ready to accept it. They were adamant, leading to the argument.

At 7.45pm, a mob of around 100 people entered the emergency wing and started manhandling junior doctors. The medicine ICU was vandalised. The ventilator machine was damaged. The mob looked for junior doctors and as they were not in sight, the people damaged hospital property. Most of the junior doctors hid around the hospital.

A junior doctor, an anaesthesia department doctor (anaesthetist) and I hid in the neurology operating theatre. Some of the junior doctors hid in the stinking bathrooms for the next one hour till police arrived.

Cops were on the campus within half hour of the incident but they were not enough to handle the mob. We were surprised that the administration took the situation so lightly that it could not even arrange required number of cops.

In the absence of adequate force, we three were scared and started contacting our friends in the hostel to come and save us. I called my friends from the hostels while theanaesthetist started contacting journalists.

We spoke in hushed tones lest the mob hear us. We were so scared that we even put off the lights in the OT and sat in the dark for one-and-a-half hours.

Around 9pm, things slowly became normal and my friends from the hostel arrived and helped us come out of the neurology operating theatre. The junior doctors from the hostel were angry to see their fellows being beaten up by the mob. So, they also caught hold of four of the attendants and did not let go till the police arrived.

To free the attendants, the police resorted to lathicharge on the junior doctors. The police hit two of them on the head with their lathis while 17 others suffered various fractures.

I am concerned about the junior doctors with the head injuries.

When attendants get angry with doctors - even though doctors try hard to save each and every patient - because of alleged wrong treatment, they (attendants) beat us up and then go to other hospitals for treatment. But what can we do? We get beaten even after doing our best and then we are supposed to keep mum.