October 27, 2008	Monday	Shawwal 27, 1429

PESHAWAR, Oct 26: The Provincial Doctors’ Association has expressed concern over the growing incidents of kidnapping of doctors and has warned that they would withdraw services from all the healthcare facilities if Dr Zaman Khattak, who was kidnapped from Khyber Agency, wasn’t recovered within three days.

This was stated by Dr Abdul Qadir, president of the doctors’ body while talking to Dawn on Sunday. He said that Dr Zaman Khattak, agency surgeon of Khyber Agency was kidnapped in broad daylight while the security forces present on the occasion of the incident looked the other way.

According to him, doctors as well as paramedics were serving the people in far flung areas of the NWFP and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and it was the basic responsibility of the government to provide them protection so they could perform their duties fearlessly. Dr Qadir deplored that during the last two months, about one dozen medics had been abducted by Taliban or by criminal for ransom but the authorities were still unmoved and the families of those doctors ran from pillar to post to secure the release of their near and dear ones.

The PDA, he said was the representative body of 6000 doctors and was required to safeguard the doctors against kidnapping, but said that they didn’t want to resort to strike and create problems for the people. However, he said that enough was enough and the association was under tremendous pressure to swing into action to safeguard its members.