TIMERGARA, Jan 30: Police took a doctor and his assistants into custody here on Monday for allegedly running a clinic without having proper documents.

Officials said that a team of health department comprising Dr Liaqat Ali and senior clerk along with local police raided a private clinic in Timergara and arrested Dr Javed Khan, laboratory assistant Tayyeb and pharmacy assistant Ahmad Khan.

SHO Habibullah told local journalists that the three persons were taken into custody for illegal medical practice after getting permission from health department.

“The arrested persons will be produced before a local court on Tuesday for legal action,” he said. He added that the relatives of a patient registered a complaint with police alleging that erroneous treatment by Dr Javed caused complications and they were forced to take him to Peshawar where he was admitted to a hospital.

The SHO said that the doctor refused to provide relevant documents, necessary for running a clinic, to the raiding team.

However, Dr Javed, a resident of Totano Banda in Swat, told Dawn on contact that he had got an M.D degree from a recognised medical university in Afghanistan. He said that he lost his educational documents during a military operation in Swat.

“I lost all my documents when we were displaced from Swat,” he said, adding that he had applied for duplicate copies of the documents but had not got the same.

However, the doctor said that he didn’t get published advertisements in national dailies about the loss of his documents as he was not aware that it was essential for getting duplicate copies of educational certificates and degrees.

The health department has launched a crackdown against fake and illegal medical practitioners in the district and so far several clinics and medical laboratories have been closed in the district.