On a day, when the doctors struck work in different parts of the country in protest against the assault on their colleagues at a Kolkata hospital a few days back, doctors in the state capital on Monday thrashed a shopkeeper and looted the goods kept at his shop over a trivial incident.

According to the police sources here, about two dozen junior resident doctors of the state-owned Ram Manohar Lohia Medical College & Hospital ransacked a general store near the hospital, thrashed the shopkeeper and his assistant and also allegedly looted the goods.

Sources said that the incident followed heated arguments between one of the junior doctors and the shopkeeper after the former opened the bottle of deodorant for ''testing'' before deciding to buy the same.

''The shopkeeper objected to it and soon an argument ensued between them,'' said a police official here.

The junior doctor called his colleagues from the hostel and hospital and they allegedly thrashed the shopkeeper and his assistant and also looted the goods kept at the shop, sources said.

Local shopkeepers downed their shutters in protest against the incident, police said.

A case was registered and investigations were on. ''We are trying to identify the doctors with the help of the CCTV footage....we will take stern action against those responsible,'' said a police official.

The Hospital authorities also promised strict action against the erring doctors. ''We can not do something (assaulting others) against which we are protesting,'' said a hospital official here.