RAWALPINDI: The Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology (AFIC) formed a seven-doctor team on Friday to examine former military ruler Pervez Musharraf.

The army doctors conducted all the required pathological tests and sent the reports to the United States and United Kingdom for a ‘second opinion’.

Sources in the AFIC told Dawn that Gen Musharraf was stable and he walked in the premises of Ward-2 of the CCU-2 and attended telephone calls of his family members. “The former military chief talked to his family members without any problem,” they said.

They said that Musharraf was eating food and apparently feeling better. The team of doctors remained in the ward to track his condition, but an angiography was not conducted till late night.

However, nobody at the AFIC was ready to come on the record to say anything about the health of Gen Musharraf. Media personnel remained outside the hospital for the second day amid continuing confusion about the ailment of the former army chief.

Some found it strange that the AFIC was consulting doctors in the US and UK but not contacting Dr Hasnat Khan, one of the world’s best cardiac surgeons, in Rawalpindi.

Surgeon Khan, who rose to world prominence for his reported link to Princess Diana in the mid-1990s, is head of the surgery department of the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology (RIC).

He is no alien to AFIC doctors because he used to come to the institute for training of them. He joined the RIC after former AFIC commandant retired Maj Gen Azhar Kiani persuaded him to take the job.

When contacted, Maj Gen Kiani confirmed that Dr Khan was in Pindi, but refused to comment further.

Gen Musharraf’s lawyers Ahmed Raza Kasuri and Barrister Saif visited the hospital but doctors refused to allow them to meet him.

“The condition of the former president was stable but he was kept in the ICU and visitors are not allowed to meet such patients,” Mr Kasuri said.

He said stress was the basic reason for the apparent heart trouble. “Everyone can feel stress and if Musharraf has gone through this then it is not abnormal,” he said.

He said Musharraf was not as ill as once Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had become when he was taken to a hospital at 3am in 1999.

He said that Musharraf’s condition had worsened while he was on way to the court and security personnel had decided to take him to the hospital. “Now the ball is in the court of the doctors. If they allowed him then Musharraf will appear before the court on Jan 6, otherwise their medical certificate will be presented,” he said.

According to AFP, Mr Kasuri said: “No one can challenge the doctors’ report -- if the doctors advise to take him abroad for medical treatment then the doctors’ opinion will be carried out.”