KOHAT: A brawl took place between the police and paramedics here at the Women and Children Hospital (WCH) where the police tried to vacate the quarters forcibly from the staff performing emergency duties.

Paramedics Association president Rashid Bokhari said that a tussle was going on between the medical superintendents of WCH and KDA teaching hospital and the district health officer after some of the quarters were occupied by the children of retired staff who were also serving in the hospitals.

He said that MS of the WCH, Dr Gule Rana, had issued a list to the assistant commissioner Furqan Ashraf asking him to vacate the quarters. He said that the female police entered the houses and pulled out the families.

About 30 to 35 paramedics had gathered and stopped the eviction operation, which infuriated the assistant commissioner, Mr Bokhari said.

“I demanded the list from Mr Ashraf which does not include the names of some of those families who were being forced to leave,” he said.

“I reported the matter to the MS who said that she had not asked the AC to vacate the quarters from the affected families after which she cancelled her whole notification,” Mr Bokhari said.

He alleged that in fact the district health officer had put some employees in the quarters who did not perform the emergency duty, but were polio vaccinators.

DAWN STAFFER GRIEVED: A renowned social worker and timber merchant Engineer Arif Paracha, who was the cousin of Dawn’s Kohat correspondent Abdul Sami Paracha, breathed his last at the intensive care unit of Combined Military Hospital in the wee hours of Thursday.

He was suffering from cancer and had been declared at the last stage by doctors a few months ago at the HMC.

His funeral was offered at Sawa Lakh Graveyard which was attended by officials, businessmen and people from all walks of life at 2pm.

Hundreds of people were visiting the hujra outside his house to offer fateha for the departed soul. He was the father of Aleem Paracha, Fahad Paracha, Atif Paracha and Amir Paracha.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2019