HYDERABAD, April 13: The staff of a private charitable hospital on Tuesday boycotted work and protested against arrest and maltreatment of a wardboy by the Market police, in connection with a theft case. Two union council nazims and a former MPA have also joined in the protest.

Reports said that the Market police had picked up three employees of the hospital after a theft of a few injection vials worth Rs3,000 in the medical store of the hospital was reported.

The names of those taken by police to the station were Irfan Razzaq Memon, Ghani Memon the store keeper, and Irfan Lal Mohammad. The first two persons were freed from police custody on the intervention of hospital administration officials, as they were from the same community, a delegation of the hospital staff led by Dr Mukesh, Dr Khalid and Dr Abid Khanzada told newsmen.

They said that Ghani Memon was the stores incharge and he should have been first held responsible for the theft of the medicines at the hospital medical store.

However, the wardboy was kept back and interrogated by police. Witnesses said that after the hospital staff mounted pressure on police, Irfan Lal Mohammad was released. He had been severely beaten up by police all night and had to be taken in an ambulance to the hospital from Market police station.

Irfan Lal Mohammad told newsmen that he was stripped of his clothes and mercilessly beaten by around 10 policemen last night. He said that he has got nothing to do with the theft.

When questioned about this, the SHO of Market police station, Rana Shafique denied that the boy was tortured. He said that a theft was committed and that the three were interrogated, but they were released by hospital doctors. He conceded that no recovery of the stolen medicines had been made from the three persons.

The staff gathered in the hospital and raised slogans against the hospital management and police. Union Council Nazims, Majeed Qureshi and Mohammad Ali Gohar also reached the hospital and joined the protest.

They also said that the boy, a resident of Noorani Basti, was innocent. The hospital employees said that Irfan Lal Mohammad was an orphan and had nothing to do with the theft, as he was an ordinary wardboy.

Police also picked up Asif, a private medical store owner outside the hospital, for questioning, but he was also released. He claimed that if hospital management did not tender an apology to him he would file a defamation suit against the management. The hospital administrator, on his part, claims that since Irfan Lal Muhammad confessed to his crime, the two other detainees were released.