Sudan Doctors

KARACHI: Another doctor fell prey to the ongoing wave of targeted killings on Thursday a few yards from his private clinic in Landhi, police said.

It was a fifth incident of doctors’ killing in recent weeks apart from a pathologist, who was killed a few days ago. In his early 50s, Dr Zahid Hussain was targeted, in what has now become a routine modus operandi of hit men in Karachi, by two men riding a motorcycle seconds after he left the clinic for home in his car.

“The clinic named Al-Masiha Medical Centre is in Landhi 5,” said Sub-Inspector Inayatullah Narejo, the SHO of the Landhi police station. “He left the clinic after 5pm as a matter of course and had driven only to the corner of the street when two men on a motorbike emerged and fired at the car, which was moving at a slow speed in the congested lane.”

The motorcyclists left the scene in a flash, leaving the wounded Dr Hussain in a pool of blood.

He was later taken out from the car by passersby and put into an ambulance that took him to a hospital, where he died during treatment.

“He was hit by at least three bullets fired from a very close range. The two bullets that struck him in the upper torso proved fatal,” said an official at the medico-legal section of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.

Though the investigators remained clueless about the killers, the police authorities see the murder as a continuation of the fresh spree of doctors’ killing.

“We need to look into the incident before reaching any conclusion, though it seems part of the current trend,” said Malik Zafar Iqbal, the SP of the Landhi Town.

Doctors’ reaction

The doctors’ representative body criticised the government over its failure to stop the killing of doctors.

“In this province the governor, the health minister, the home minister and several other public representatives are doctors, but unfortunately they have yet to realise the threat level and take necessary steps,” said Idrees Adhi of the Pakistan Medical Association. “If the spree goes on and forces the doctors to stay indoors, only the common people and the patient would suffer. We have been assured several times by the police authorities and the government, but it has only remained lip service.”