KARACHI, June 28: More than 10 days have passed since the disappearance of Dr Akmal Waheed, his brother Dr Arshad Waheed and their driver but there is no sign yet that they will be recovered anytime soon.

To express dismay at their disappearance, some senior doctors representing the medical community held a press briefing at the PMA House on Monday during which it was stated that the missing brothers had apparently been picked up by one of the law-enforcement agencies. The doctors appealed to the authorities that the two doctors be released immediately, if at all they were in custody.

During the press conference it was announced that the cause of the missing doctors had now been taken up by the newly-formed Joint Karachi Doctors Action Committee. Under the new initiative, the protest against their disappearance would be spread from the National Institute of Cardio-Vascular (NICVD), for which they worked, to the other hospitals of the city, including the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Civil Hospital Karachi, Liaquat National Hospital and Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

The doctors who spoke on the occasion - Dr Shershah Syed, Dr Qaiser Sajjad, Dr Haseeb Alam, Dr Misbahul Aziz, Dr Aziz Khan Tank and Dr Nighat Shah - said from Tuesday onwards the doctors working for the above hospitals would wear black arm bands during office hours. They would also hold protest meetings almost every day.

The doctors declared that they would decide on their future course of action if the two doctors and their driver were not recovered within the next three days. As the opening salvo of the protest campaign, the doctors would march from the PMA House to Karachi Press Club.

They made it clear that they did not want to call a strike but this step would also be taken if necessary. At the briefing Dr Akmal Waheed's wife, Dr Fouzia Waheed, claimed that she did not know what kind of patients were treated by the two brothers.

"I don't know if they treated people close to the Taliban or Al-Qaeda. Even if they did, that is not a crime." In her sentimental statement, she repeatedly said her husband and brother-in-law were innocent. "My husband was never involved in underground activity. If the government has evidence to the contrary, let there be court cases against him."

Meanwhile, one of Dr Akmal Waheed's colleagues at the NICVD, Dr Rasool Bux, said the federal health ministry had taken note of the protest against the two doctors' disappearance. The ministry had sent a letter to the interior ministry and high police officials in this regard, he added.

Answering a question, Dr Bux said the doctors working for the NICVD would continue to boycott work at their outpatient department from 11am onwards every day. The aim of the boycott, he said, was not to unnecessarily trouble the patients but to highlight the plight of the two missing doctors and their families.