HYDERABAD: Health Services Sindh Director General Dr Irshad Memon formed on Saturday an inquiry committee to look into the circumstances that had led to the August 13 death of senior journalist, Jan Mohammad Mahar, after “alleged deficiencies in provision of medical care to him in the wake of firearm related injuries”.

The team comprising Dr Shahabuddin Qureshi (head), chief superintending medical officer at Sindh Government Hospital Qasimabad; Dr Ahsan Siddiqui, chief executive officer at Sindh Healthcare Commission, and Dr Nazeer Ahmed Rind, additional director at Directorate General of Health Services Sindh (members) would conduct a thorough inquiry to determine culpability, if any, and submit its report within five days to facilitate subsequent legal proceedings, said an official notification.

Rs10m aid for bereaved family

Provincial caretaker ministers for law and health visited the family of Mr Mahar in Sukkur on Saturday to condole his tragic death.

The ministers, Umar Soomro and Saad Khalid, handed over a cheque of Rs10 million to the bereaved family and offered condolences to them on their irreplaceable loss. They assured them of bringing his killers to justice.

Sindh Health Services chief forms team to see if prompt, proper medical care was provided to him, or not

The senior journalist, Jan Mohammad Mahar, who was associated with a private Sindhi newspaper and its TV channel, was gunned down in a targeted attack near St. Saviour School on Queens Road, Sukkur, on Aug 13.

Later, talking to the media, the ministers said that an inquiry was being conducted into the journalist’s murder and alleged negligence in providing immediate medical assistance to him after he was taken to a hospital in a critical condition.

Anti-dacoit operation

The ministers said that they will recommend to chief minister to order a Rangers-led operation against dacoits and “excise their cancerous growth” from upper Sindh, particularly the most crime-infested districts of Sukkur, Ghotki, Shikarpur and Kandhkot-Kashmore.

They said that the recommendations for the operation would be made in the light of Sindh High Court’s decision which had already ordered launch of an operation under the supervision of Rangers against dacoits and outlaws, who had challenged the writ of the state. But before that, a 90-day budget would have to be released, they said.

They said the interim government was neither under any compulsion nor political pressure to stop it from carrying out operations in the gang-infested areas of upper Sindh.

They said the rape and murder of young housemaid Fatima Furirro in Ranipur had made heads of the entire nation hang in shame. The victim’s parents were poor and hapless and they would soon be shifted to a safe place so that no one could put pressure on them or do them any harm, they said.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2023