An employee of a private hospital in Rahim Yar Khan was reportedly tortured to death on Saturday night for allegedly stealing Rs10,000.

The victim's father, a resident of Chachran Sharif, told police that his son, Muhammad Asif, a 20-year-old student at a technical institute was a part-time employee at Ameena Jamal Medical Complex, located in Town Hall area.

On Saturday night, a former employee of the hospital informed the boy's father, Hussain Baksh, that his son had consumed poison and the hospital staff were taking him to the emergency of Sheikh Zayed Medical College Hospital (SZMCH).

When the victim's father arrived at SZMCH, he found his son had expired and his dead body was in an ambulance, with blood flowing from the nose.

Baksh has alleged that it later came to his knowledge that Dr Farhan Qureshi of Amna Jamal Hospital — who is also an assistant professor of urology at SZMCH — along with Dr Rizwan Qureshi, Muhammad Nazim, Furqan Saleem, Muhammad Tahir, and Abid Hussain gave Asif a thrashing on the accusation that he had stolen Rs10,000.

In his statement before police, Baksh has claimed that Asif died due to the severity of beating.

Police registered a First Information Report (FIR) on Sunday under Sections 302 (punishment of qatl-i-amd), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of the offence) and 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapons) of the Pakistan Panel Code and arrested all the accused.

SZMCH spokesperson Professor Dr Burhan Mustafa told Dawn that the cause of Asif's death will be known after the postmortem report is issued.