KARACHI, Feb 16: A sessions court sentenced on Saturday a doctor to three years in prison for illegally removing through surgery one of the kidneys of a patient over six years ago.
The court found Dr Kashif Mateen guilty of removing the kidney of his patient Mohammad Kashif in May 2006 in a hospital in North Nazimabad.
Assistant District and Sessions Judge (central) Ali Ahmed Jan pronounced his verdict after recording evidence of witnesses and final arguments from both sides.
The court also imposed a fine of Rs100,000 and in case of non-payment, the convict would have to undergo an additional six-month imprisonment.
The court ruled that the charge against the accused stood proved beyond a shadow of a doubt after examining the ocular and documentary evidence furnished by the prosecution.
According to the prosecution, patient Kashif visited the clinic run by the accused in North Nazimabad due to a severe abdominal pain. He was told that he would have to undergo surgery to remove stones from his gallbladder.
The patient was given medication and operated upon, but the doctor did not tell him that one of his kidneys had been removed, it added.
The patient came to know about the removal of one of his kidneys only when he felt severe pain and consulted a doctor of another clinic in Paposh Nagar, who conducted various tests, including an ultrasound, and told him that he had one kidney and that the other had been removed.
A case (FIR 280/06) was registered against Dr Mateen under Sections 334 (punishment for ltlaf-i-udw) and 406 (punishment for criminal breach of trust) of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Taimuria police station. The doctor was subsequently arrested on July 8, 2006. Later he was released on bail.
The accused was present in the courtroom on Saturday and following the pronouncement of the judgment, he was taken into custody and sent to prison along with a conviction warrant to serve out the awarded sentence.
Police dept clerk recovered from ‘illegal’ detentionOn a directive of a district and sessions court, a bailiff raided the Mithadar police station on Saturday and recovered a man, an employee of the police department, apparently kept there in wrongful confinement.
The raid commissioner got Sukheyal Khan aka Shakeel Abro released on a personal bond since the police failed to produce any solid evidence to justify his detention at the police station.
Head Bailiff Muddasir Hussain said that he along with the applicant and her lawyer raided the police station and found the detainee confined in the room of the duty officer.
The police said that they brought the detainee for interrogation as a complaint had been received against him for allegedly minting money from a man on a false promise of a job in the police department.
However, the bailiff said that there was no entry in the daily dairy of the police station about the arrest or custody of the detainee and the police also remained unable to produce any FIR or document to substantiate his detention.
The SHO and the duty officer of the police station concerned were asked to appear before the district and sessions judge (south) on Monday.
The applicant side was also told to ensure their presence in court, he added.
Applicant Rafiqa moved a habeas corpus application under Section 491 of the criminal procedure code in court submitting that her husband Sukheyal Khan was a clerk at the Central Police Office and he was picked up outside his office three days ago. The applicant contended that the detainee had wrongfully been confined at the Mithadar police station and prayed to the court for his recovery.