IMA is referring to violence and attacks faced by the healthcare workers amid pandemic (Representational)

Taking serious note of obstructions to the cremation of a Chennai doctor who died of COVID-19, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Monday warned of "appropriate retaliatory measures" if the authorities fail to stop such incidents.

"It is a matter of great concern that these doctors who had died in their line of duty be treated shabbily and in such an uncivilised manner," the doctors' body said in a statement, adding if the state governments do not have power to stop such incidents, "they lose their moral right to govern".

Referring to the violence and attacks faced by the healthcare workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the IMA said that it has shown much restraint in spite of extreme provocations.

"That doesn't mean our patience is endless. Abuse, violence, spitting, pelting of stones, denial of entry to societies and residential accommodation have been tolerated so far since we expected the governments to do their normal duty."

"When they are unable to discharge their constitutional obligations, perhaps these are not normal times. Denial of dignity in death is the ultimate sacrilege," IMA National President Rajan Sharma said.

Mr Sharma said that the society must realise that doctors are rendering services at extreme risk to themselves. No nation sends its army to war without weapons.

"Doctors, nurses and healthcare workers of this country have been sent to fight against COVID-19 without PPE kits and they are dying young defending their people. If the value of such services are not realised, the easiest thing for the doctor community will be to sit at home," he said.

IMA Secretary General RV Asokan said, "While all other interventions have already been withdrawn, it is very unfortunate if more services are going to be withheld for non-medical reasons. The state governments concerned are better warned to perform their constitutional duties as expected."

"Failing which IMA has no option but to resort to drastic steps to protect the rights of the medical professionals. Appropriate retaliatory measures will be decided if the constitutional machinery breaks down."

An orthopaedic surgeon had to bury his associate, a neurosurgeon who died of COVID-19 in New Delhi, in the middle of the night using his bare hands and a shovel at a crematorium with the help of just two hospital ward boys after the undertakers fled when a mob, protesting the interment, attacked them.

Their opposition was due to a misconception that the contagion may spread in their neighbourhood if the virus victim's burial took place. The windscreens of the ambulance in which the body of the 55-year-old neurosurgeon was brought to the crematorium on Sunday night were smashed and even the casket was not spared.

They attacked the undertakers and corporation sanitation officials, among others, using bricks, stones, bottles and sticks and chased them away.