YDA plea: Court invites SHO’s comments

Case sought against Health Dept officials over use of force against doctors.

LAHORE:

An additional district and sessions judge has sought comments from the Shadman SHO for February 23 on a petition seeking cases against health officials for allegedly directing police to use force against and to detain protesting doctors.

Dr Muhammad Arif, a member of the Young Doctors Association (YDA), stated in his petition that doctors protesting peacefully were baton-charged and beaten up by riot police officials near Services Hospital on Jail Road on February 10.

He said that some of the protesters were bundled into police vans and locked up at North Cantt police station. He submitted that the doctors were detained on the directions of the health secretary and of Khawaja Salman Rafique, the chief minister’s special assistant on health.

The petitioner said that the doctors had a constitutional right to protest.

They had done nothing illegal, nor were wanted in any case, so their detention was against the law, he argued. After their release, they approached the Shadman police station to lodge a complaint, but the SHO refused to register an FIR, he added.



The petitioner asked the court to direct the SHO to register a case against the two health officials.

Complainant summoned in murder case against doctors

Additional District and Sessions Judge Nisar Ahmed has summoned for February 28 the prosecution and the complainant in a murder case against some doctors who allegedly denied treatment to a child during the Young Doctors’ Association (YDA) strike last summer.

Muhammad Afzal, the father of the deceased 18-month-old and the complainant, had been summoned for Saturday but did not turn up.

In his complaint to Gowalmandi police, Afzal had stated that the doctors removed a drip from his son, who was being treated at the emergency ward at Mayo Hospital, in order to enforce the strike.

The FIR was registered under various sections of the Pakistan Penal Code including murder.

In their bail applications, the doctors had said that they were not even at the emergency ward at the time of the alleged offence.

They claimed that the case was politically motivated and meant to put pressure on the YDA to end their protest.

The doctors later withdrew their bail pleas, in anticipation of the case being dropped, as the government and the YDA agreed in negotiations to end the protest in November 2012.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 17^th, 2013.