The three-day hunger strike of the patients -- demanding the withdrawal of the transfer of two officials -- ended yesterday after the Social Welfare Minister Krishna Tirath assured them that the transfer will be reconsidered.

For three days, the 600 inmates at the Tahirpur Custodial Home for Leprosy Patients were on a hunger strike, they had locked up superintendent Mrityunjay Joseph and welfare officer Dharmendra Prasad, who had been transferred. The inmates demanded that the officers who were the first ones to treat them as human beings should not be transferred. Finally the government agreed to reconsider the order. But the department struck back. Narayan Singh, who was a superintendent at the home for two months before being transferred to the nearby Training and Production Centre two months ago, received his suspension order today. Singh said Joseph and Prasad, the two officials whose transfers are being reconsidered, used to visit him frequently in his office, which is a stone's throw away from the Home for Leprosy Patients.

``This has led the department to conclude that I prompted the idea of an agitation among the inmates after the two officials were transferred,'' he said. Singh said that he was also asked to meet Chief Secretary Omesh Saigal and Secretary (Social Welfare) Narendra Prasad to explain his side of the story. ``What could I say? How can I be responsible for the actions of other people?'' he said.

When contacted by Express Newsline, Saigal confirmed the order and promised to look into the matter. Director of the Department of Social Welfare Geeta Sagar said Narayan Singh has refused to accept the suspension order and has sent it back. ``Now I have sent it by registered post,'' she said. According to Singh, his suspension and the hunger strike were the result of an argument between Prasad and S.C. Tyagi, a deputy director at the Department of Social Welfare.

``When Tyagi came to hand over the transfer orders to the two officials, he and Prasad got into an argument over an incident which had taken place at the headquarters some time ago,'' he said. Singh said he tried to intervene and hearing the noise, the inmates gathered. He said he stopped the furious inmates from attacking Tyagi. Sagar denied that there was a fight between Tyagi and Prasad and added that the leprosy patients assaulted him when he went there to deliver the transfer orders. Tyagi was not available for comment.

Sagar said that there were allegations of corruption against the transferred officials of the leprosy home. Narayan Singh too was transferred from the Home on similar grounds.