Jalandhar, April 27 -- In the third such incident in Punjab this month, two groups clashed inside the emergency ward of Nawanshahr's civil hospital on Friday evening.

Similar clashes had been reported from Dera Bassi and Gurdaspur civil hospitals on April 11 and April 12 respectively, following which the Punjab Civil Medical Services (PCMS) Association had demanded that security guards be deployed at state-run hospitals. During a meeting with PCMS representatives, the government had agreed in principle to beef up security at medical facilities across the state.

In the latest incident, the two groups had been admitted to the emergency ward with medicolegal injuries when they began verbally abusing each other.

According to the police, th...