LAHORE, Oct 17: A 10-member medical mission of the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) reached Balakot on Monday to provide medical services at the field surgical hospital set up by the Jamaat-i-Islami there.

The mission is headed by Dr Amirud Din. Two physicians, Dr Mohammad Ata and Dr Zu Alkasli, from the PAS have already been working in the Balakot Medical Camp, says a press release.

The Jamaat’s affiliated social welfare organization Al-Khidmat has set up medical camps and 50-bed field hospitals at Bagh, Muzaffarabad, Rawalakot and Mansehra where quake-hit people are being provided medical treatment besides services in the OPD.

Forty doctors and more than 200 paramedics are serving the ailing humanity in these field hospitals. Medicines worth Rs500,000 were dispatched to these hospitals from Rawalpindi on Monday.

The Rawalpindi camp has so far sent 126 truckloads of relief goods to Muzaffarabad, Bagh and Rawalakot, while 65 trucks have been dispatched to Mansehra.

Meanwhile, Jamaat amir Qazi Husain Ahmad has underscored the need for delivering relief goods to the quake-hit people in a respectable way ensuring due protection of the victims’ self-respect.

He was speaking to the affected people on the second-leg of his visit to quake-hit areas of Dheer Kot and Bagh on Monday. He was accompanied by AJK Jamaat amir Sardar Mohammad Afzal, former amir Abdur Rashid Turabi and Usman Anwar.

He took strong exception to the aid delivery system under which people were made to stand in long queues. He said Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had offered him to take an aerial view of the devastation by a helicopter which he declined saying such a visit would not help ascertain the real extent of the damage caused to men and material in the ruined cities of the NWFP and Azad Kashmir.

He said they were ready to cooperate with the civil government provided it was empowered to exercise its writ and authority in collaboration with volunteers.

He regretted that aid could not be provided to remote villages and the affected people had started concentrating along main roads to get relief which was against the national pride.