GUJRAT, March 13: The local District Headquarters Hospital management on Thursday refused to perform autopsy of a woman councillor, who was killed by her colleague during a meeting at Malikwal, Mandi Bahauddin, about 100 kilometres from here, on Wednesday night.

Reports said during a union council No 50 meeting, Ghafooran bibi and Dr Muhammad Sadiq Hanjra, both belonging to PPP, quarrelled over some issue and exchanged harsh words. Reacting to it, Dr Hanjra pelted a brick and a glass bottle on the woman, and thrashed her. Grievously injured, the councillor was taken to the Malikwal police station where police referred her to the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital to get a medico-legal certificate. However, she succumbed to her wounds before reaching the hospital.

The agony of the deceased’s relatives piled when they had to go to some other district, as the Mandi Bahauddin’s civil hospitals had no female doctors, who could perform autopsy in case of murder or any other tragedy.

Visualising problems, the family contacted the Mandi Bahauddin executive district health officer, who referred them to his counterpart in Gujrat with a request to perform the slain’s postmortem.

The Gujrat EDO directed the DHQ medical superintendent to make arrangements for the autopsy, but the latter refused to do so on the pretext that higher-ups had imposed a ban on dealing such cases of other districts.

Sources in the hospital quoted medical superintendent Dr Khaleelur Rahman as saying to Ghafooran’s heirs that the local health secretary and the DCO had directed him not to deal with such cases of other stations.

When contacted on telephone, EDO (health) Dr Talat Shah confirmed that the district government had officially directed the department not to perform autopsies in Gujrat’s civil hospitals of the victims belonging to other districts. He, however, denied that his counterpart of Mandi Bahauddin had referred the case to him. “The victim’s heirs might have met directly with the MS, who might have refused them to accommodate in view of the strict orders,” he added.

In a similar situation three days ago, a suicide victim of Khizar, Malikwal, was brought for autopsy to the Gujrat DHQ Hospital. The hospital’s management was initially reluctant to perform the autopsy, but on the health higher-ups order performed autopsy after 24 hours of the victim’s arrival.

Malikwal police told Dawn on telephone that they were unable to lodge any FIR without a postmortem report. They said the slain and the accused lived in the same street at Fazlanabad, Malikwal.

Despite making efforts, they claimed that it could not be confirmed that the deceased’s family had taken her body to hospital of any other district.