04 December 2004	Saturday	21 Shawwal 1425

KARACHI, Dec 3: By refusing to release doctors Akmal and Arshad Waheed, despite the acceptance of their bail application by the Sindh High Court, the provincial government has acted against the sanctity of the judiciary.

It is imperative now upon the Chief Justice to take suo motu action in the matter, said the members of the Joint Doctors Action Committee. Speaking at a press conference at Karachi Press Club on Friday, Dr Misbahul Aziz, Dr Shershah Syed and Dr Rasool Bakhsh observed that if the authorities did not release the brothers at the earliest, a protest campaign would be launched against the government.

They said the grant of bail by the High Court had made it clear that the Waheed brothers had been implicated. By refusing to release the two brothers, the provincial government has displayed fascist tendencies, they said.

Clarifying their own position, the three doctors said they had never advocated that the Waheed brothers be released even if they were involved in any wrongdoing. They said they did not want to call a strike because doing so would badly affect the patients who needed care, no matter what. But even though we don't want to take harsh steps, the government is forcing us to do so, they added. Next week, the Joint Doctors Action Committee would request the like-minded professional bodies to join hands in a joint struggle against the policies of the government.

The action committee would take to the streets and hold rallies and even stage sit-ins in front of the Karachi Press Club, they said. In response to a question, they said care would be taken that patients did not suffer unnecessarily during the campaign. But if things went out of hand, the government would be responsible.

One of the speakers said that as a result of the bad social and political environment in the country, more than 1,000 physicians and surgeons had left the country during the last one-and-a-half years. More are likely to go if the situation did not improve appreciably in the next few months, they said.

On the contrary, our stance has been that if the government has anything concrete against the two, they should be tried properly at an appropriate forum. However, kidnapping them and putting them through one false case after another was simply not the work of a civilized government, they said.

One of the doctors pointed out that the brothers were never released despite the grant of bails. Normally in such cases it so happens that a person is re arrested after he or she is released, following a bail. But in this case, nothing of this sort happened because the release papers were never received by the jail authorities, they added.

The speakers said during the course of legal proceedings against the two doctors, hurdles had been created by the government. And now that despite everything they have been granted bails, they were not allowed out, they said.

One of the speakers said the two doctors' arrest in a new case on Thursday showed that the government sought unconditional obedience from the masses. All the professional bodies, especially those representing teachers and doctors should launch a joint campaign against the wrong policies of the government, they said.

Some political parties in the ruling coalition, they claimed, were busy in settling old scores through the case. The authorities had done little over the years to apprehend the killers of dozens of doctors but were very 'efficient' when it came to false cases against the Waheed brothers, claimed the doctors.

One of the speakers was of the view that the claims of 'good governance' that had been made repeatedly by the president and prime minister were nothing but an eyewash.

It was the government's responsibility that only criminals were arrested and innocent people were protected. They said when Asif Ali Zardari was released on bail not long ago, it was claimed that the government had finally adopted sane policies. But all these turned out to be nothing but wishful thinking, they added.