HARIPUR: The court of duty magistrate here on Sunday released on bail deputy medical superintendent of the District Headquarters Hospital, Haripur, and a head constable who were arrested the previous day on the charges of subjecting a man to torture.

Police sources said that the case was registered against the doctor, a head constable and five yet to be identified security officials of the hospital on the directives of the inspector general of police who took notice of a video that went viral and was aired by some TV channels showing the complainant being subjected to torture by some unknown persons.

Afterwards, the alleged victim filed a written complaint with the city police contending that he was serving as constable in the Abbottabad police department as contractual employee.

The complainant was facing a case of harassing nurses of DHQ Hospital

He said that on March 8, 2018 at around 9:30pm he was standing out of his house adjacent to the hospital’s building when Dr Dildar Ahmed, deputy medical superintendent, came out with five security personnel of the DHQ Hospital and a policeman who caught and took him to the police reporting room of the emergency department where they subjected him to severe torture.

According to the complainant, the doctor also captured the scenes of his naked beating which he then uploaded on social media. He said that he kept silence as the doctor and his accomplices had threatened him of dire consequences, but when the video clips went viral he had to lodge a complaint against them.

On Ishtiaq Ahmed’s compliant the city police registered a criminal case under sections 355, 501, 504 and 506/34 of PPC on Saturday against Dr Dildar, head constable Mohammad Nawaz and five security guards of the DHQ Hospital and arrested Dr Dildar and the head constable who was on duty when the complainant was allegedly subjected to torture.

The accused were produced in the court of duty magistrate on Sunday who ordered their release against Rs70,000 sureties each.

It may be added that on the complaint of Dr Dildar a criminal case was registered against Ishtiaq on March 8, 2018 with the city police station under sections 294, 506 and 509 of the PPC.

In this case, Dr Dildar had alleged that Ishtiaq would scale down the boundary wall of DHQ Hospital and sexually harass the nursing staff and women attendants of patients admitted in the gynaecology and children wards during nighttime. Ishtiaq was later caught and handed over to the city police. However, he secured release on bail from the local court.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2018