PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday again sought replies from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief secretary and other officers to a petition against a “lack” of health facilities in Upper South Waziristan tribal district and a request for setting up a fully functional district headquarters (DHQ) hospital there.
A bench consisting of Justice Syed Arshad Ali and Justice Farah Jamshed was informed by counsel for the petitioners, Sajjad Ahmad Mehsud, that in June, comments were sought from the respondents within a fortnight but the same had so far not been filed.
It again issued notices to the respondents, including the chief secretary, health secretary and director general (health services), directing them to file comments in the petition filed by several residents of Upper South Waziristan.
The petition with multiple prayers was jointly filed by residents of Ladha tehsil in the district, including Asifur Rehman and others.
Issues notices to chief, health secretaries and DG (health services)
They requested the court to declare that the denial of adequate health facilities to people in Upper South Waziristan district was unconstitutional and a violation of their fundamental rights.
The petitioners sought the court’s orders for the respondents for ensuring availability of qualified and specialist doctors, including women medics, essential medicines and necessary medical equipment.
They also requested the court to direct respondents to make all basic health units, rural health centres and civil dispensaries fully functional, particularly in remote areas, including Karama.
The petitioners also requested for establishment of medico-legal units and postmortem facilities in the district on an urgent basis.
Advocate Sajjad Mehsud said that before 2018, South Waziristan was a tribal agency that was part of the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).
He said that after the merger of Fata into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through the Constitution (Twenty-Fifth Amendment) Act, 2018, South Waziristan was declared a settled district.
The lawyer said that through a notification by the KP government in 2022, South Waziristan was divided into Upper and Lower South Waziristan districts.
He added that upon the creation of Upper South Waziristan district, the respondents became legally and constitutionally bound to provide essential infrastructure, including administrative offices, law-enforcement system and most importantly a fully functional DHQ hospital.
The counsel, however, said that despite the lapse of considerable time since the creation of the district, the respondents had failed to set up a DHQ hospital, leaving the entire population without basic and essential health services.
He claimed that the current healthcare structure in the district was limited to a few BHUs and small health centres, which were either non-functional or grossly under-resourced and lacked qualified staff, medicines and essential equipment.
Mr Mehsud contended that there were no medico-legal facilities, postmortem units or medico-legal officers in the district, so people were compelled to transport the deceased to other districts for postmortem, leading to unnecessary delay, degradation of forensic evidence and serious impediments in the administration of justice.
He said that in cases of medical emergencies, people were forced to travel long distances often ranging from five to seven hours to Dera Ismail Khan and 14-15 hours to Peshawar, which
frequently resulted in preventable fatalities during transit due to a lack of timely medical intervention.
Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2026
