close
Friday March 29, 2024

NICVD guards accused of torturing patient’s son

By M. Waqar Bhatti
August 09, 2018

Patients and their attendants held a protest demonstration inside the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) on Wednesday after the hospital’s guards and employees reportedly subjected the son of a patient to brutal torture and threw him out of the cardiac-care facility.

Following the incident, the NICVD suspended four guards, while the affected person approached the police to register an FIR against the said guards, the NICVD administration and security in-charge Latif Dar.

According to officials, Hashim Motiwala, the torture victim, tried to enter the hospital in his car to deliver blood for his father, a patient admitted there, but the guards at NICVD stopped him and prevented him from parking his car inside the parking area despite having a parking sticker on his vehicle.

Motiwala tried to convince the guards to let him inside the hospital explaining the situation but the guards refused and after a heated argument, four NICVD guards started beating him with fists, belts, and batons, leaving him badly bruised and injured.

Motiwala’s relatives as well as attendants of other patients, visitors and some patients intervened to save the young man from the torture, but some of them too were subjected to violence and abuses, which resulted in chaos at the facility.

“I was trying to deliver blood bags for my father who is in critical condition but the guards told me to get lost and park my car somewhere else. When I argued that my father is in critical condition and he needs blood immediately, they started abusing me, dragged me out of my car and started beating me,” Motiwala said.

He alleged that after subjecting him to brutal torture, the guards dragged him inside the hospital where the security in-charge, who is a retired military official, also slapped him multiple times and told him to remain silent or face further humiliation and torture.

Following this, a large number of people including patients and attendants held a protest demonstration inside the hospital premises and chanted slogans against the NICVD administration.

They called for the arrest of the armed guards and their security in-charge for torturing a young man who rushing to get blood for his ailing father and vowed to continue their protest until action was taken against the accused.

NICVD Administrator Malik Hamidullah suspended the four guards after the incident and assured the protesters that if a case is lodged against guards by the victim, the hospital would not try to protect them.

Hamidullah later told journalists that the victim was the son of a person who had donated millions of rupees as well as medicines and equipment worth millions to the NICVD in the past. He added it was injustice and cruelty on part of the hospital guards to torture an unarmed man who was taking blood for his father.