KARACHI, Sept 30: A prosecution witness in the case against two doctor brothers was declared hostile on Thursday after he gave an "obliging statement in favour of the accused".

Judge Feroze Mehmood Bhatti of the ATC-2, who is conducting trial inside the Central Prison, fixed Oct 7 for the next hearing after declaring Dr Saqib, the third prosecution witness, hostile on the request of prosecution.

Dr Akmal Waheed, a cardiologist, and his younger brother Dr Arshad Waheed, an expert in kidney diseases, have been charged with financing, harbouring and treating Jundullah activists.

The case was registered by the Gulshan-i-Iqbal police under Sections 201, 211 and 216 of the Pakistan Penal Code and Sections 21-C, 21-J and 11-M of the anti-terrorism act for financing, assisting, harbouring and treating activists of the banned Jundullah. The two brothers were also charged with sending people to Wana for terrorist training.

It was alleged that the two brothers sent Jundullah activists, Shahzad Ahmed Bajwa and Mohammad Qasim to Wana for getting training from Obaidullah, the brother of Nek Mohammed.

During the examination-in-chief, Dr Saqib Ansari submitted that he was on duty on March 19 at the Shan Hospital. He said Dr Akmal Waheed asked him to provide treatment to one of the patients at the emergency section. He said Dr Rehana had already treated the patient who had sustained minor injuries after falling from a motorcycle.

Dr Saqib further stated that he had gone to the court of the judicial magistrate where he was shown photograph of a man and was asked to identify him. He stated that he duly identified the man, but he did not treat him, nor did he meet him on the date of the incident.

He also said that the memo of the identification parade was not read out to him. During the cross-examination by defence counsel M. Ilyas Khan, the prosecution witness admitted that a police official had visited him and showed him the photograph of a man.

He said the inspector informed him that the man in photograph was the patient who had received treatment. He said the inspector asked him to come to the court of judicial magistrate for identification parade.

He said after seeing the photograph, he identified the patient. To a suggestion, he admitted that he had never seen the patient or treated him in the hospital at the time of the incident. He also admitted that if he had not been shown the photograph earlier, he would not have been able to identify the patient.

Following the testimony of Dr Saqib, special public prosecutor Maula Bux Bhatti requested that the witness be declared hostile. He also requested the court to allow him to prosecute the hostile witness.

During the cross-examination by the public prosecutor, the witness admitted that he was approached by Dr Asad, brother of the accused doctors, before the date of hearing for a favourable statement.

Later, public prosecutor Bhatti told Dawn that he requested the court to declare Dr Saqib hostile as he had given an obliging statement in the favour of the accused brothers.

SENTENCED: The additional district and sessions judge, West, sentenced a man to a five-year term for molesting a five-year girl. Accused Bahadur Khan was booked and arrested on Aug 31, last year by the Pak Colony police for the offence.