The protests against the 27 per cent quota for OBCs in government-aided higher educational institutions continued in Kanpur and Chandigarh, where junior doctors of the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research went on mass casual leave and organised a rally.

In Kanpur, medicos performed a mock 'shradh' or funerary ritual of Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who once made a statement in Parliament against quotas.

Youth For Equality, the umbrella organisation of the protesting medicos, said junior doctors in West Bengal would boycott classes from Monday but attend to duties in emergency wards of state-run hospitals.

There were no demonstrations in Mumbai, where sources said over 160 medicos arrested during protests yesterday were released only after they signed a bond saying they would not assemble in public places.

"We say no to caste-based reservation though our counterparts in Delhi decided yesterday to suspend the anti-quota stir," said a representative of the medicos in Kolkata.

The junior doctors formed a human chain before holding a rally to condemn the Centre's move as well as a baton-charge by police on protestors on Thursday.

In Kanpur, doctors of GSVM Medical College suspended a three-month-old and resumed work. The Allahabad High Court had declared the strike illegal as it was affecting hospitals in Uttar Pradesh.