Action now: Students, teachers, doctors up in arms against police

Demonstrations held in two cities against ‘police inaction’

FAISALABAD/ BHAKKAR:

Citizens slammed police negligence in two different protests in Bhakkar and Faisalabad on Monday.

In Faisalabad, hundreds of students of the Government College University Faisalabad (GCUF) and the university’s faculty and non-teaching staff held a demonstration against the police demanding that they arrest the people who had allegedly beaten up a professor at the GCUF.

Dr Khizar Samiullah told journalists that he was standing at the GCUF’s main gate on January 21 when Advocate Ahsan Randhawa and his accomplices picked him up and took him to Randhawa’s chambers where they beat him up and humiliated him.

The protesters carried banners and placards and gathered at Chenab Chowk and blocked traffic at the junction for several hours.

Samiullah said that the police had registered a case against Randhawa but had not arrested him. “Randhawa and his cronies have been threatening me with dire consequences and the police are doing nothing to restrain him.”

The students and staff suspended academic activities at the GCUF on Monday and walked from Chenab Chowk to Zila Council Chowl. They also walked around the Clock Tower Chowk and took a round of the eight bazaars surrounding it – Bhowana Bazaar, Aminpur Bazaar, Chiniot Bazaar, Kutchery Bazaar, Rail Bazaar, Karkhana Bazaar, Montgomery Bazaar and Jhang Bazaar.

Several traders, shopkeepers and businessmen said that they had to shut down their shops early because of the protest. Some of them said that the protesters had beaten up some shopkeepers who had refused to shutter down their shops.

The protesters finally staged a sit-in in front of the local city district government secretariat at Zila Council Chowk and traffic on University Road.

They shouted slogans and demanded that police arrest Randhawa without delay.

CPO Afzaal Kausar held talks with some of the protesters and assured them that they would arrest Randhawa soon.

‘We got beaten up because police are lazy’

Doctors of the Darya Khan tehsil headquarters hospital have called a province-wide strike against ‘violent protesters’ and police inaction against the protesters who had beaten them up.

On Monday, scores of relatives of a patient who had died at the hospital gathered in front of the THQ hospital and staffed a demonstration against the hospital staff.

Shamim Bibi and her husband Muhammad Munawar had gotten injured in a road accident and were taken to the Darya Khan THQ hospital. The protesters said that there was no doctor and no paramedic staff at the hospital. “We were told that they had gone to attend a funeral,” one of the family members said.

He said that Shamim and Munawar had gone without treatment for six hours after which Shamim succumbed to her injuries.

The protesters blocked the road in front of the hospital and allegedly beat up some of the doctors.

Medical Superintendent Abdul Razzaq Ghauri said that some of the hospital staff had been badly beaten up. “I kept calling police for help but they took forever to reach the hospital.”

When the Darya Khan Police SHO and assistant commissioner arrived at the scene and asked the protestors to end the demonstration, they refused. The protesters told the authorities to register an FIR against the doctors and paramedics on duty.

Basheer Ahmad, the brother of the deceased, said he had filed an application against the hospital staff with the Darya Khan police station.

The MS said that the doctors had not been negligent. “They were brought to the hospital in an ambulance…I treated the patients myself.”

He said that the protesters had beaten him and other doctors and had dragged him on to the road. He said he had also filed a complaint against the protesters. The MS and doctors at the THQ hospital have called a strike of doctors across the Punjab.

SHO Ahmad Abbas said as soon as he was informed, he took a team of cops in a police van and arrived at the demonstration. He said that he had taken charge of the incident and had stopped the protesters from inflicting further damage. “I believe we acted responsibly.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 2^nd, 2016.