LAHORE, Dec 14: Police investigation has exonerated the Mayo Hospital surgeon from rape charges levelled against him by a Kashmiri quake survivor on Dec 7. This was disclosed by Lahore Investigation Police Chief Chaudhry Shafqaat Ahmad at a press conference at the district police lines on Wednesday.

“The charges have not been proven during investigation of the case,” he replied to a query.

He claimed that the victim herself had retracted the charges in statements she recorded to the police and a court.

He said that the girl who had alleged that she had been assaulted by the Mayo Hospital surgeon retracted the charges on Friday.

On Dec 7, the girl, 18, in a written statement had alleged that surgeon Dr Maqsood Husain, 43, had assaulted her sexually at his office on the night of Dec 4. The surgeon was medical officer of the earthquake wards at the hospital, who after registration of a rape case against him presented himself to the Lahore police.

However, the girl had mysteriously gone missing for a couple of hours from the ward for quake victims, while the hospital administration had termed her disappearance ‘leaving against medical advice’.

Later, it was learnt through police sources that the girl and her family had been whisked away from hospital by one Maulana Mohammad Akram of Jamia Ashrafia, who claimed to be her relative.

Asked as to why the surgeon had not been set free, the investigation police chief said the accused had been sent to judicial custody.

Since the Supreme Court had taken a suo motu of the case, the fate of the accused would be decided after the production of the victim and record concerned to the court on Dec 16.