Pakistani dad in UK dragged away from dying daughter’s bedside takes legal action

LONDON: A British Pakistani doctor who was assaulted at his child’s hospital bedside along with his doctor wife has said that he decided to speak out to save others from discrimination and hate.

Both Rashid Abbasi, a graduate of Dow Medical College Karachi, and his wife Doctor Aliya Abbasi, were subjected to violence by the Northumbria police as they sat by their six-year-old daughter Zainab’s hospital bedside while doctors wanted them to leave the room so her life support could be switched off for her to die.

The couple spoke to The News exclusively at their home in Country Durham, near the Scottish border. The horrific footage, publicised widely on British and international media this week, shows Pakistani doctor being dragged away from his daughter’s bedside, handcuffed and beaten by the four policemen – while the local hospital’s staff stood by after calling the police over to remove the couple from their daughter’s bedside.

Doctor Rashid Abbasi said that his wife was assaulted first by the police and then he came under attack. Zainab, 6, had complex needs due to a rare degenerative condition and doctors had told the couple that she had only a few hours to survive. She died a week after her parents were forcibly removed from the hospital exactly a year ago. There were reporting restrictions in place on the incident and Abbasis had to fight a complex legal battle to be able to tell their story to the world and to obtain footage from the police.

The National Health Service (NHS) hospital trust cannot be named for legal reasons but said the decision to involve police was never taken lightly. Dr Abbasi explained that Zainab suffered from Niemann-Pick disease and the after-effects of swine flu, which she contracted when she was two and then in 2018 she had a flare-up of her lung condition after a viral infection.

Doctors advised the couple that it would be “kind” to let her go as she had no chance of survival. However, he says the couple advised doctors on what treatment to give Zainab and on both occasions she responded well and defied analysis of the doctors.

Last year, the couple told the doctors not to take her off the ventilator as she was doing fine and responding fine. She was hospitalised in the summer of 2019 and was put on life support at the family's local hospital, in the north-east of England.

He told The News: “Three days before attack on us, Zainab watched three TV shows of her choice. She was holding my hand and communicating all the time when she needed. She was communicating through her hand movement and eyes.”

Dr Abbasi and his wife, both senior surgeons in the NHS, had a meeting with the doctors for about 25 minutes where they were told that she will be put off the ventilator.

Doctor Abbasi said he knew the doctors had made up their mind that they will take off the life support and that’s why he moved to be by her side. The doctors didn’t like that, he said, and they asked the police to come and remove them.

Within minutes, four officers from the Northumbria Police arrived while Dr Abbasi was holding his daughter's hand at her bedside. The police asked the parents to step away.

Dr Rashid Abbasi told the police that being an NHS doctor he knew about his rights and that the police had no legal grounds to order him to remove from there because he had done nothing wrong and was there because as a parent he had right to be with his daughter.

He told The News: “I didn’t want to move from there because I knew that they will take my daughter off the life support. That’s exactly what they wanted to do. The hospital staff lied to the police that I was being disruptive and aggressive. That’s not true. I was only standing up for my rights, for rights of my daughter.” The first policeman dragged Dr Aliya to the floor after she asked the police officers not to remove her husband.

Dr Aliya Abbasi said: “I was told that I should not speak as it was not about me, but my husband. I was pinned on a chair by two security guards. They didn’t respect my rights as a Muslim woman, as a woman, as a member of the public. They held me back with so much force that I was left with bruises on my arms and I had to get medical treatment for the injury caused by the heavy handed security team.”

Dr Aliya Abbasi said she saw how her husband was dragged down to the ground and mishandled by the police. “When I cried for help they drew the curtain so I couldn’t see what the police were doing to him.”

She said: “They drew the curtain while pinning me on the chair by force but I could hear screams of my husband as he was beaten by the police. The police abused my husband. I requested to the police that he’s a heart patient but they didn’t care and didn’t want to listen. They were ruthless in how they treated my husband.”

Doctor Aliya Abbasi said: “In hindsight, I believe that I would be treated very differently if I was not a Muslim and Asian, I was wearing hijab and that mattered. While we were in the hospital we saw a lot of swearing by the parents whose kids were there but the police and the hospital staff took no action. They called the police only on us, to humiliate and beat us.”

While Dr Aliya Abbasi was restrained and stopped from coming to the rescue of her husband, the police pulled Dr Rahsid Abbasi to the floor. He was physically restrained, his legs were strapped together, he was handcuffed and wheeled out of the area.

Dr Abbasi suffered a heart attack as the police continued to assault him. “I asked the police to let me take medicine but they refused. I told them I am a heart patient but they didn’t listen. One police officer told me that that they will let me take medicine if I behaved well. Even if I was a convicted criminal, I had right to medical treatment but I was denied that right by the police.” Dr Abbasi said he was beaten by the police. “They used their knees and elbows to hit in my chest, lower abdomen, stomach and legs with knees out of the body cam area. They made sure that they hit me knees and kicks so that their hits are not captured on the camera. But the camera of 11 minutes tells the whole story of how I was assaulted.”