VEHARI, Oct 5: The police and some influential figures are all support for the private medical practitioner who has been tagged as the mastermind behind the medicine theft incident.

A large stock of medicines, including life-saving drugs, worth Rs50,000 have been stolen from the District Headquarters Hospital storehouse the other day. On the complaint of the medical superintendent, the Danywal police registered a case against Sajid, a former DHQ hospital employee who is doing a private practice nowadays.

During a visit to the Danywal police station, this correspondent talked to Sajid who has been detained in a lock-up. He claimed that he had stolen medicines from the hospital for the fifth time; first in July 2006 when he stole a stock of medicines from the hospital’s medical ward. The next month, he said, he made off with medicines from the children ward and then from surgical and eye wards in September.

The latest incident took place on Oct 3 when he tried to escape with more of the stock donated by some people to the children ward but he was caught red-handed.

Sajid confessed that he was not alone in the theft incidents as some other people were behind him whose names he would not disclose. In response to a question, he confirmed that a ruling party MPA had been supporting him and the Danywal police had not once quizzed him during the last 24 hours or so despite instituting a case.

He claimed that he had sold the entire stock of medicines to two medical stores near the DHQ hospital for Rs7,000.

Dr Ghulam Husain Asif, the eye ward in-charge, said a well-organised gang was involved in the theft of medicines and it included some medical store touts who roamed in and around the hospital despite a ban on their movement by the administration.

He said around Rs100,000 worth of medicines had recently been stolen from the eye ward storehouse and about 20 per cent of which had been recovered from two medical stores near the hospital and Sajid’s clinic in Thingi area.

He said the police were reluctant to take any action against these store owners, demanding that special guards should be made available at the hospital to keep an eye on medicines and costly equipment.

Dr Asif revealed that the ruling party MPA in the limelight had offered to pay the cost of stolen medicines on the condition that the hospital administration withdrew the case against Sajid.

Medical Superintendent Dr Nasir Dilshad alleged that the police had changed the nature of the application of case registration by concealing the actual amount of the medicines. In fact, he said, the prime suspect had also taken away some equipment of which the police had taken no notice.

As for the hospital security, he said shortage of manpower —peons and guards — was one of the problems afflicting the hospital.

Answering a question about previous theft incidents, Dr Dilshad claimed that he did not inform the police about those incidents keeping in view the police attitude and reluctance to go against the will of the influential figures.

He demanded that the ministry of health should take stock of the incident and bring the culprit to book besides taking measures to prevent their recurrence.

DSP (Headquarters) Abdul Majeed told Dawn that the police were not going hard on the suspect because he seemed to be an addict and could take any extreme measure.