KARACHI: Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has demanded to award harsh punishment to the police official accused of resorting to firing at a medic in Karachi National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) and threatened to lockdown hospitals over the government’s inaction, ARY News reported on Thursday.
The doctors have threatened to lockdown hospitals to protest against NICVD firing incident where their fellow doctor was injured by firing of a Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) official.
While addressing a press conference in Karachi today, the association’s representatives said that the firing incident was condemnable as the doctors were performing their duties amid severe difficulties. They demanded the government to conduct a high-level investigation into the incident and award strict punishment to the responsible police official.
The association also demanded provision of security to the doctors besides installation metal detectors at the hospitals.
PMA representatives warned to lockdown the hospitals including out-patient departments (OPDs) if the government failed to take immediate action against the responsible official, as well as ensuring security arrangements to protect the health workers.
It emerged that enraged police personnel, who was attending a patient at the government-owned hospital, opened fire at an on-duty doctor and fled from the scene. However, the other police officials arrested him after taking timely action. The police personnel was identified as Constable Kamran, according to CTD in-charge Raja Umar Khattab.
Raja Umar Khattab told media that the accused official was deputed at CTD Civil Lines and he was not feeling well since the last few days. He added that Kamran had also engaged in a fight with the security guard at the hospital when he was stopped from entering the premises for not wearing face mask.
On the other hand, the hospital sources claimed that Kamran came as a patient in the hospital and demanded the staff to provide him with sleeping pills.
