Autopsy reveals Services Hospital victim was lynched

Doctors proclaim their innocence, say incident occurred between victim and guards

LAHORE: The postmortem report of Sunil Saleem Masih, who was killed earlier this week at Services Hospital during a clash, revealed the deceased was lynched to death. It stated that several ribs were broken and torture marks appeared on his body.

According to sources, the Services Hospital has tried its best to hide the document and no official was available for comment till the filing of this report.

However, investigation in-charge of the case, Inspector Husnain Haider, termed this incident as a ‘murder’ committed by those who belong to a noble profession. “He was badly beaten and the culprits later put the body in an empty room to conceal the facts,” he said.

The official stated that CCTV video has been confiscated, but the suspects could not be taken into custody as they obtained pre-arrest bail from the court. “Let me tell them that the blood of Sunil Masih will not go in vain,” he committed

According to the FIR, registered by Aneel Masih, the deceased’s brother, several doctors, security guards and staffers brutally assaulted the victim.  The report stated that the incident erupted when doctors allegedly started “torturing” the patient’s family on the night between Monday and Tuesday. Sunil, an employee of the Motorway Police and brother of patient Kiran, was killed in the incident. It added that the scuffle occurred among the Services Hospital administration and attendants of patient Kiran Kashif, who brought to the medical facility with labour pain.



The story initially came into the limelight when a video spread through social media in which the hospital administration and attendants were slapping each in the midst of abusive language.

Meanwhile, the suspects who were members of the Young Doctors Association (YDA) claimed their innocence. They claimed the incident occurred between the security guards and attendants at the hospital.

In a hurriedly called press conference at the Doctor’s Hostel of the Services hospital, YDA Senior Vice President Dr Atif Chaudhry warned that the medics would “fight to the end” if anything happen to their peers. He continued that no doctor was involved in the lynching of Sunil Saleem. “Our heart is bleeding. We are with the aggrieved family” he added. “We requested them several times not to enter the labour room or make videos, but they refused,” he added.

He said it was the responsibility of the hospital administration to stop such incidents, which are occurring with alarming regularity. Chaudhry claimed that in the CCTV footage, no doctor was seen slapping or hitting the attendants. He asked that the name of all doctors be removed from the FIR.

Several video clips, which went viral on social media, captured a brawl between the victim's family and security guards as well as hospital staff. The relatives of the deceased also attacked a security guard involved in the clash, the videos revealed.

Rawadari Tehrik head Samson Salamat, while talking to The Express Tribune, said although the incident was not based on religious or racial grounds, the fact that a human being was killed is enough to warrant punishment for the culprits, in accordance with the law.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30^th, 2018.