Decrying brutality: Opposition members demand nurses be released

PPP MPA Nighat Orakzai said student nurses’ hostels be reopened

PESHAWAR: Opposition members in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly criticised the violence and protesting nurses. The opposition members have said they would take to the streets against the government if the arrested nurses are not released within 48 hours.

At a news conference at Peshawar Press Club on Saturday, Awami National Party parliamentary leader, Sardar Hussain Babak, Pakistan Peoples Party MPA Nighat Orakzai and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl K-P Information Secretary Jalil Jan said they condemned the baton-charge on nurses of Hayatabad Medical Complex.

The opposition members said every citizen has a right to voice its concerns. They added brutality of K-P police against nurses was unjustified.

According to the opposition members, the K-P government must accept its failure and were of the view that “civil martial law” was imposed in the province that forced people to take to the streets and press for their legal demands.

The opposition members said the arrested nurses should be released with immediate effect and the issue ought to be tackled through dialogue.

On the occasion, Orakzai criticised the police for thrashing the nurses. She said if the nurses were not released within 48 hours, the opposition members would take to the streets.

Injustice

About closing down of hostels, she said students nurses belong to remote districts and would have nowhere to go. She also demanded hostels be reopened immediately as there is no other place of accommodation for the student nurses.

On the occasion, Babak said not only nurses, even teachers, doctors and representatives of the local government were protesting against the provincial government and were being arrested – even jails in the province have run out of space, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2016.