HYDERABAD, July 4: Office-bearers of Sindh and Hyderabad chapters of the Pakistan Medical Association announced on Wednesday that they were observing a token strike for two hours from that day in protest against police action against their colleagues in Punjab and registration of cases against them.

Addressing a press conference here, PMA Sindh general secretary Dr Hadi Bux Jatoi, Hyderabad PMA general secretary Dr Wasim Sheikh and Young Doctors Association general secretary Dr Asad Nadeem condemned Punjab police’s coercive measures against doctors.

They said the Punjab government had previously agreed to meeting demands of doctors but later it linked it with budgetary allocations. The police, which could not even lay a finger on the people who subverted the country’s Constitution was subjecting doctors to humiliation and shoving them into lockups as is they were proclaimed offenders, they said.

They said that doctors were being reminded of their oath which they took at the time of graduation but no one was taking about those who trampled upon the Constitution.

Dr Jatoi said that doctors were not responsible for the deaths although they were regrettable. If doctors were to be held responsible for each death in hospital then Rehman Malik should be booked for all murders that had taken place in Karachi alone because it was the responsibility of state to protect life and property of people, he said.

He supported Punjab doctors’ demand for service structure and cited some examples in which doctors who had passed competitive examinations to join police service were serving in grade 19 and 20 while their colleagues in medical profession were working in BPS-17.

He urged journalists to avoid character assassination of doctors as they served the ailing humanity. Doctors treated patients and handled them at a time when patients’ families could not do it, he said.

He said that there was complete breakdown of law and order and brain-drain was taking place from Sindh, because of incidents like that of Dr Aftab Qureshi’s kidnapping and death in May 30 rescue operation.

Dr Jatoi said the PMA had moved the Sindh High Court against the botched rescue operation and sought a judicial inquiry. The court had expressed displeasure over reports submitted by police on the encounter and the PMA would file its objections to the report on July 16 in Karachi, he said.

Dr Wasim Sheikh said that the police report was flawed. The PMA should seek judicial probe into the incidents in which patients died in hospitals and doctors were ready to face them, he said.

Dr Jatoi said that at first, a token two-hour strike would be observed but if the government did not take it seriously the association could expand it to countrywide. The government should solve the issue amicably, he said.