The police on Thursday stepped up search operations to trace absconding Rashtriya Janata Dal member of the Bihar legislative assembly Surendra Yadav, who was allegedly involved in the firing at a hospital in Gaya, even as the indefinite strike by junior doctors across the state demanding his immediate arrest entered its fourth day.

Amit Lodha, senior superintendent of police, Gaya, said the police had stepped up the search for Yadav after raiding his house in the town, besides several other places where he was believed to be hiding. The operation was intensified after the Gaya chief judicial magistrate issued a non-bailable warrant against Yadav directing the police to execute the warrant at the earliest.

The indefinite strike by the medicos for the firing by the MLA's bodyguards at Anugraha Narayan Medical College and Hospital at Gaya on Sunday has affected the functioning of medical colleges and hospitals in the state, official sources said.

Junior doctors have rejected the appeal by the state health department to resume work. Among the hospitals affected by the stir are ANMCH, Patna Medical College Hospital, Nalanda Medical College Hospital, Darbhanga Medical College and Hospital, S K Medical College and Hospital in Muzaffarpur and J L N Medical College and Hospital at Bhagalpur.

The PMCH authorities have described the functioning of the hospital and emergency as normal with help from senior doctors. The junior doctors of the hospital organised a parallel OPD outside the official one and donated blood as a mark of protest.

The two bodyguards of Yadav, a four-time MLA from Belagunj in Gaya and a minister in the erstwhile Rabri Devi government, had allegedly fired at junior doctors at ANMCH and injured three of them after a heated argument between them and the legislator over delay in treating a patient.