KARACHI, July 20: The Joint Doctors Action Committee held a protest rally in front of the Karachi Press Club on Tuesday against the continued detention of the Waheed brothers.

Addressing the rally, doctors demanded of the government that Dr Akmal Waheed and Dr Arshad Waheed be released immediately as they had been implicated in 'false' cases. At least 200 people, including family members of the Waheed brothers and colleagues, attended the demonstration.

Dr Aziz Khan Tank said that it was the responsibility of every doctor to treat patients from any section of society without considering his/her affiliations. "Nobody can take that away from the doctors," remarked Dr Tank.

During the rule of Gen Ziaul Haq, the doctors regularly went to Bosnia and Chechnya to treat Muslims living there. "But nobody in the government objected to such initiatives," he said.

The secretary of the Pakistan Medical Association, Karachi chapter, Dr Qaiser Sajjad, claimed that instead of solving the problems faced by the medical community, the government was systematically implicating doctors in objectionable cases.

The two brothers were being presented in the court in an extremely unseemly manner. PMA central chapter's secretary Dr Shershah Syed said that every citizen was entitled to a life with dignity and honour.

But, the Waheed brothers were being denied such a life. He demanded that the two doctors be released as soon as possible. Dr Misbahul Aziz said that the government of President Musharraf wanted to get projected as a bulwark against 'terrorism'.

"This is the main reason why people like Akmal Waheed and Arshad Waheed were implicated in objectionable cases," he said. Mamnoon Hussein and Saleem Zia of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) also participated in the rally.