?Don?t beat us, we just want to hand over a memorandum.?

Those were the words of Jhuma Das, a nurse with a city hospital. But a blow with a police lathi nearly broke her arm. She has been admitted to a private hospital.

A couple of days after the Gurgaon assault, police in Salt Lake rained batons on nurses in a bid to stop them from entering the Swastha Bhavan precincts.

About 100 nurses, under the aegis of the Calcutta Nurses Action Forum, had gone to Swastha Bhavan to submit a memorandum to health department officers against their failure to fill several hundred vacancies for nurses in hospitals across Bengal.

Instead, closed gates and a huge poss? of policemen greeted them.

?We did not expect such a huge contingent of policemen. We were expecting a few woman constables, but it is amazing how their male counterparts misbehaved with us,? cried forum secretary Rituparna Mahapatra.

Around 11 am, the nurses gathered in front of the gates and requested the policemen to let them in.

?No, we cannot allow that. The orders are to stop you near the gates. So, please leave,? police said.

But the nurses resolved to enter the building, and they somehow managed to unlock the gates and tried to sneak into the compound, when the policemen decided to use their lathis to stop them.

?I begged them to stop, but my pleas fell on deaf ears,? said Sagarika Sarkar, another nurse roughed up by the cops.

With nearly seven of them sustaining injuries, Mahapatra, who was leading the group, decided to stage a demonstration outside Swastha Bhavan.

?The policemen not only abused us, but also beat us up mercilessly. We will now go to the chief minister for justice,? Mahapatra added.

Later, Prabhakar Chatterjee, director of health services, said police were told to allow four or five nurses inside.

?I do not know why police beat them up with lathis, but it seems that all of them tried to barge in, which could not be allowed,? said Chatterjee.

?We have been repeatedly saying that we will recruit nurses in phases,? he added.

Senior police officers denied that the force used lathis to thwart the agitation.

All the injured nurses were taken to hospital for treatment. ?About 4,000 nurses have passed out and have no jobs, yet the government is not filling up vacancies. Whatever they are saying is not correct,? Mahapatra stressed.