‘Torture’ of doctors: SHO fails to respond to YDA plea

LAHORE: An additional district and sessions judge has again sought comments from the Shadman SHO for March 14 on a petition seeking a case against health officials for alleged torture and illegal detention of members of the Young Doctors Association. The judge had directed the SHO to respond to the petition on March 6 (yesterday), but he did not. On February 10, police baton-charged protesting doctors on Jail Road and detained some of them. Petitioner Dr Muhammad Arif, a member of the Young Doctors Association (YDA), has submitted that the health secretary and the chief minister’s special assistant on health, Khawaja Salman Rafique, had directed the police to do so. The petitioner argued that the doctors were protesting peacefully and the police action constituted torture. He also submitted that the detention of the doctors was illegal, as they were not wanted in any case.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 7^th, 2013.