Minister for Civil Defence Srikumar Mukherjee was locked into an ugly public spat with the deputy superintendent of Calcutta Medical College, Harekrishna Chanda, over providing free treatment to one of those who got injured when a warehouse at Strand Road collapsed on May 29. Three people died in the incident.

“For people like you, the government is losing human face. Do you know you are talking to a minister? You should be removed from your post immediately,” Mukherjee told Chanda.

But the official was unfazed. “I will go by rules only. You send me the government order and I will show you the human face,” the defiant doctor replied.

“Son of a b****”, shouted the minister, in front of a battery of journalists.

He then told reporters who were already there in his chamber to receive briefing on the developments in his department, “I will see to it that he gets punished for what he has done to a minister. I will take up the matter with the health minister tomorrow.”

The whole episode started when Feroz Ansari, a relative of three of a family Izaz Ansari, Hafiz Ansari and Amtunnessa Ansari, who got injured in the incident and got admitted at Calcutta Medical College, got in touch with him for financial help.

“Two of them will be operated upon tomorrow and they needed Rs 5,000. The deputy superintendent told me that they would have to arrange for the money first and it will be reimbursed after one month. I told him to find some way so that the operation was done first. But the doctor refused to budge. I will teach him how to behave with a minister,” an angry Mukherjee said. But the official was unmoved.