HYDERABAD, May 13: Dr Aftab Qureshi, an ailing professor and the head of department of neurosurgery in Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUHMS), is reported to have been kidnapped in Karachi on Saturday.

He was picked up by two armed men when he left his clinic along with his assistant Imdad and another man. The kidnappers freed the two men and left the doctor’s car near Patel Park where it was found with the help of tracking system, said Syed Naeem Hassan, Dr Qureshi’s legal adviser.

The doctor’s family is avoiding journalists. According to other sources, his brother has received a phone call from kidnappers, asking him to arrange ransom.

Dr Qureshi attends clinics in Taj Complex and Seventh Day Hospital in Karachi on Saturday and Sunday.

He left Hyderabad for Karachi on Saturday and dropped his family in his flat near Saddar. When he left the Taj Complex clinic he was kidnapped.

Dr Qureshi has been seriously ill for quite some time and recently started attending the clinic and the university. “He was paralysed and went into coma for some time but later recovered,” said LUMHS vice-chancellor Prof. Dr. Noshad A. Shaikh.

Dr Shaikh said that Citizen Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) had been informed. He condemned the incident and said he had called a meeting of the academic council. “Dr Qureshi regularly needs medicines in view of his recent ailment,” said a university official.

Pakistan Medical Association’s provincial leader Dr Hadi Bux Jatoi and Hyderabad chapter general secretary Dr Wasim Sheikh condemned the kidnapping and demanded that the government take action for immediate recovery of the neurosurgeon.