Harassment charge haunts ‘CIA collaborator’

Dr Afridi forced a nurse to tend to a male patient with genital injuries.

PESHAWAR:


With a high treason case already registered against him, the doctor who allegedly assisted American intelligence agencies in tracking down Bin Laden and his family in Abbottabad through a ‘fake vaccination camp’, is also facing a harassment charge that has been pending in the Supreme Court (SC) for some time now.


Documents available with The Express Tribune titled: Enquiry Report: Harassment of Female Nurse Khyber Agency, reveal that complainant Sania Bakht filed a harassment charge against Dr Shakil Afridi, then Khyber Agency surgeon, when he told her to tend to a patient in the male ward with injuries on his genitals.

The record reveals that Sania was on duty in the female ward but Dr Afridi, despite being informed by the other staff that a male doctor

had already seen the patient, insisted that Sania tend to him.

After going through relevant evidence, the inquiry committee recommended sending Dr Afridi out of the agency, and transferred him to the directorate of health services (Fata) instead.

Following the episode, Dr Afridi sought a departmental appeal against his transfer, saying the action was “politically motivated by Muhammad Nawaz Khan”, Pakistan Peoples Party agency president “and Hameedullah Jan”, then minister for environment. His appeal was rejected, following which Dr Afridi took the case to the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) service tribunal which concluded that the “transfer is not a punishment” and that the respondent department may continue the inquiry in accordance with the law and “if found guilty, the department may award proper punishment”.

As a result, the Fata Secretariat filed a civil petition in the apex court against the judgment of the K-P service tribunal, but issued a notification on April 13, 2011 to reappoint Dr Afridi as the Khyber Agency surgeon in compliance with the decision of the K-P service tribunal - exactly 29 days before Osama bin Laden was killed in a covert operation by the US Navy SEALs on May 2 in Abbottabad.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 12th, 2011.
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