On returning to Pakistan after a few months, I was puzzled to see an ad in this newspaper placed by the Pakistan Association of Mental Health (PAMH) asking patients being treated at the Institute of Behavioural Sciences (IBS) to come to another premises to consult their doctors.

I wondered what disaster was preventing the patients from continuing to use the modern facilities at the IBS as I had visited it a few years ago and had written about the impressive achievement of the PAMH. Once I found out the grubby details - mentioned at some length by my friend Ardeshir Cowasjee in his recent weekly column - I was sickened by the depths plumbed by our elite. Since the matter is sub judice, I cannot comment on it, except mentioning some facts.

As it happens, the mentally ill in Pakistan are largely ignored by the state and are usually locked up by families ashamed of their existence. They are thus the most neglected and vulnerable section of our society. So when the IBS came into being in the mid-nineties, it was a big relief for Karachi's population of citizens with mental problems. Headed by Dr Zaki Hasan and Dr Haroon Ahmed, two of Pakistan's leading psychiatrists, the team of consultants served on a voluntary basis. Here, I thought, was a model of social service where normally highly paid professionals were donating their time gratis to fill a desperate need. Patients who could not afford to pay were treated free of cost as a local philanthropist donates money for medicines on a regular basis.

After running around for a long time, PAMH managed to get the Sindh government to donate a piece of land for a permanent clinic. When it came to constructing a building, the association launched a fund-raising drive and to his credit, Dr A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear programme, used his clout and store of goodwill to raise substantial sums. The PAMH team, too, raised over twenty million rupees, building up an endowment. While Dr Khan's contributions went into bricks and mortar, the psychiatrists focused on providing urgently needed care to patients.

Matters continued thus with the IBS rapidly developing into a major facility for mental health until the PAMH established a board of governors with a president to look after policy matters with Dr A.Q. Khan as the patron. Now even his most fervent admirers cannot suggest that the retired godfather of Pakistan's nuclear programme is a modest or self-effacing man. Prone to issuing bellicose statements on our nuclear capability, he is no shrinking violet.

So when he was unceremoniously retired, he looked around for ways to stay in the limelight and decided he wanted to play a more high-profile role at the IBS. The problem with this ambition is that so far nobody has accused him of having any expertise in the field. In fact, detractors say his specialization was metallurgy, not nuclear physics. Nevertheless, his desire to play a more active role at the IBS was not rejected, given his contribution.

But too impatient to wait, he turned up at the institute with armed guards as well as a retired general and a couple of retired colonels, having filed a deposition in the Sindh High Court claiming control of the premises. This armed intrusion obviously alarmed the patients who were accustomed to the relaxed and welcoming environment the staff and doctors had worked so hard to create.

This is the background to the whole incident, and the matter now rests with the High Court where it will be taken up for hearing soon. Meanwhile, the paid staff of the IBS has resigned and by the time you read this, will have shifted their activities to Dr Haroon Ahmed's private clinic opposite IBA city campus. The fifty or so patients who were treated every day at the IBS will now come to this centre while Dr A.Q.Khan and his retired army buddies will continue occupying the IBS premises until the High Court decides the case.

Quite apart from the legality of the matter, the morality and methodology of the takeover has raised quite a few eyebrows. Here is a highly respected figure who, having done a very praiseworthy thing in raising money for the venture, is now undoing it by his highly questionable land-grab. If he had some valid grievance with the management, surely many other civilized avenues were open to him. As it is, the board of governors had agreed to make him the president, and with his consent had appointed a committee which included two senior retired judges to determine his powers. While they were examining the issue, Dr Khan took matters into his own hands.

For a man who enjoys so much respect and who has considerable property (including a palatial house in the controversial Bani Gala area outside Islamabad), this action defies understanding. Whatever his grouse about the board, surely he could see that underprivileged mental patients should not have been traumatized in this manner.

Had some feudal pulled off this stunt, one could have understood it without condoning it. But here is a man who is rich, respected and highly trained and who is interested enough in the work of the institute to raise over sixty million rupees for it. Why he should behave in this manner is beyond me. But it is not too late for Dr Khan to restore his image: he can withdraw his deposition and allow the IBS to continue functioning. His ambition of being an active president of the institute need not deprive patients of the facilities he has helped build. He needs to remember that ultimately, treatment of such patients has very little to do with bricks and mortar and everything to do with professional skill and compassion.