PHC raid on drug centre

LAHORE: Whereabouts of 59 missing drug addicts after a crackdown on a drug rehabilitation centre in Shadbagh area a few days ago is still a mystery as Punjab Healthcare Commission (PHC) and police are locked in a wrangling over jurisdiction to take action in this matter as per law.

According to details, Khalid, a relative of a drug addict, has complained torture against his family member Asif following his recovery from a house adjacent to a drug rehabilitation centre, which once again brought the matter to a limelight about the whereabouts of remaining 59 persons, who remained unaccounted for so far, after recovery of 281 persons out of registered 340 drug addicts at this 30-bedded Amir Chishti Hospital situated in Shadbagh area near Kot Khawaja Saeed Hospital as a result of a raid by a three-member team of Punjab Healthcare Commission, led by Additional Director (Complaints) Dr Shahid Mehmood, with the assistance of local police of Gujjarpura Police Station. Sources in the PHC told The News that the drug centre’s administration had managed to shift 59 inmates in the adjacent houses upon receiving prior information about the imminent crackdown. They alleged that the police authorities had failed to recover the missing inmates of the drug rehabilitation facility, which became obvious after a person, namely Khalid, had recovered his relative Asif from an adjacent house and complained against torture on recovered person by the staff at the behest of owner of the hospital.

They alleged that the police had not been properly cooperating as it didn’t accompany the PHC’s raiding team for clean-up operation despite prior requests made to DSP Civil Lines and SHO of Gujjarpura Police Station in this regard. “The police are ostensibly trying to save the owner of the drug rehabilitation centre, who is stated to have connections with the police high ups,” the officials of the PHC alleged, which is evident from the fact that police had neither taken any action to arrest the culprits nor even investigated the case despite PHC’s filing of an application with the Gujjarpura police for initiating proceedings against the owner of the facility.

Meanwhile, the PHC officials said that they had also written a letter to Lahore CCPO with the request for initiation of proceedings against the administration and owner of the hospital and recovery of the remaining missing inmates.

The police sources, however, tell of a different story as, according to them, PHC mismanaged the entire clean-up operation, as it neither had any preparation to raid and recover persons in such large numbers nor the required transport to shift them to hospitals or even listed the hospitals for further treatment. “The hospital’s staff would have beaten PHC’s team, had police not been accompanying them,” they said and added that PHC had haphazardly discharged most of those 281 recovered persons, whereas their individual statements should have been recorded under the law to make a case and proceed against the administration and owner of the hospital.

When contacted, Gujjarpura police SHO Babar Awan vehemently rejected PHC’s allegations, saying that a police team had accompanied the PHC’s team and helped them recover 281 persons and shifted them to Punjab Institute of Mental Health (PIMH). While rubbishing the allegations of police patronization to the owner of the hospital, he said that police had no legal authority to unilaterally take action and arrest the owner and staff of the hospital unless there was a complaint from the relatives against them for illegal detention of the inmates. “There is no cognizable offence in this case then how can police proceed against them,” he said, adding that there was legal requirement to take court order on the application, following which court sent a bailiff for police to initiate proceedings in such cases.

However, he said that PHC had referred a person, Abdul Rehman, (whom PHC officials named Khalid while sharing information with this correspondent), who had complained of harassment against his relative, which made it a cognizable offence and police would now take action against the culprits and investigate the matter to recover the remaining missing persons. “We will act accordingly as per directions from the CCPO Lahore in this regard too,” he added.