PIMS officer booked for harassing nurse

Famous woman cyclist says groped on Islamabad street

ISLAMABAD:

After passage of 10 days of the incident, the Karachi Company police finally registered a case against the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences deputy executive director (DED) for allegedly harassing a nurse.

A female nurse at Pims had filed a complaint against DED Dr Iqbal Durrani with the Karachi Company police on September 1. Police after making initial investigation turned the complaint into a first information report (FIR) against the senior officer of the largest tertiary care hospital of Islamabad.

The complainant had told the police that she was on routine duty went Dr Durrani summoned her in his room. She said that she had demanded the DED to release allowances pending for the past seven months. However, as she entered the room, the official grabbed her by arm and pulled her towards himself to forcible hug her on which she started screaming. On raising a hue and cry, the complainant said, Dr Durrani stepped back and she fled the room.

Further, the nurse asserted that the police tried to dump the case and did not initiate any action against the Pims official even after 10 days of the complaint. However, as the Lahore rape incident surfaced on media and Prime Minister Imran Khan took strong notice of it, the Karachi Company police immediately registered an FIR, she claimed.

She said that the Pims management had already issued her a show-cause notice allegedly to protect Dr Durrani.

Meanwhile, Pims Executive Director Dr Anser Maxood has rejected the allegations and cited it as a pressurising and blackmailing tactic for approval of the medical claim.

The Pims management has formed a fact-finding committee to probe into the alleged harassing incident.

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Further, Dr Durrani talked to The Express Tribune and said that the whole drama was staged to get protection from being caught in the financial irregularities.

Rejecting the claims of the victim nurse, the official claimed that the meeting happened in presence of 12 people and there were witnesses too.

He added that contrary to the claims of the victim, they had CCTV footage. Dr Durrani claimed that he never met with complainant nurse alone.

Woman cyclist groped

Famous Pakistani cyclist Samar Khan has said that she will not spare the man who harassed her while she was riding her bicycle in Islamabad.

“I will not spare anyone and we must make an example of such people [harassers],” she said while speaking in a video uploaded on her Facebook page.

Khan, the first Pakistani woman who has cycled on glaciers in the Karakoram Range and Kilimanjaro in Africa, shared that she was riding her bicycle when a man in a maroon shirt groped her.

“When I reached the turning near Faizabad, I felt something on my back. At first, I thought it was my bag but then I felt the movement go up and then down,” she said in another video posted on Friday. “I turned around and saw a man smiling at me. He was riding a motorcycle behind me. I started screaming at me but he grinned and then sped past me.” I could not reach him in time because I was on a bicycle, she said. “I asked people to help me but the man had fled by then.”

According to the spokesperson of the capital police, officers have contacted Samar Khan abnd asked about the details of the incident. Police said that they were checking the footage of the CCTV cameras installed in the area to identify the culprit, who according to Sammar Khan, was wearing a maroon shirt.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 12^th, 2020.