Mumbai, Jun 14 (IANS): Around 4,500 doctors started their one day token strike to express solidarity with their Kolkata counterparts, an office-bearer said here on Friday.

The medicos, affiliated to Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD), stopped attending to patients in all the 26 government hospitals in the state simultaneously.

MARD General Secretary Deepak Mundhe told IANS the doctors will keep off all routine duties between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. and the hospital administration has been informed to ensure all other services are not hampered or patients inconvenienced.

A large number of doctors gathered outside the KEM Hospital with banners, posters and placards to express solidarity with the doctors who were assaulted in Kolkata.

Similar protests were also being held in Pune, Aurangabad and Nagpur by MARD members who are demanding adequate protection for their counterparts in West Bengal.

The protests erupted on Tuesday morning in Kolkata's state-run NRS Hospital bringing the regular services to a standstill, after a junior doctor was allegedly beaten up by the kin of a 75-year-old patient who died there late on Monday night.

The family members of the deceased patient alleged medical negligence. An intern named Paribaha Mukherjee sustained a serious skull injury in the attack and has been admitted in the intensive care unit of the Institute of Neurosciences in Kolkata's Park Circus area.