Doctor accused of attempted rape of a young girl remanded in police custody

 A specialist doctor, accused of attempting to rape a young female patient at a major health facility in the district headquarters of Poonch, has been remanded in police custody for five days on Saturday.

Dr Gul Nisar, serving as ENT specialist in the Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan (SKZN) Hospital, Rawalakot, was arrested past midnight after an application was lodged against him in the City Police Station by the father of a 13-year old girl, who alleged that he had molested her in the separate room earlier in the evening.

According to the FIR, the girl was brought by her father to SKZN Hospital on Friday morning due to a nasal problem and she was admitted in the ENT ward by a duty doctor. In the afternoon, the accused ENT specialist, during a round of the ENT ward, took her to a procedure room, "where he asked her to remove her trousers and then fingered her genitals."

The distraught girl rushed out of the procedure room, sobbing, and narrated her ordeal to her father while the accused doctor slipped away from the ward, the FIR stated.

Sources told this scribe that the girl’s father brought the issue in the notice of hospital’s commandant, who then recorded her statement in the presence of senior doctors.

The FIR was lodged after the girl’s statement to the hospital authorities, sources said, adding, in the meanwhile the local civil society had also swung into action to get the alleged accused punished.

Police said that the accused was booked under section 18 ZHA (attempt for rape) and the arrest was made at about 12:30 am.

SHO City Police Station Akmal Sharif told this scribe that the accused physician denies the allegations, saying he had himself brought the girl back in the ward from the procedure room and then left for his flat. 

When contacted, DG health Sardar Mahmood Ahmed Khan said that he had received a report about the alleged incident from the hospital authorities, apart from other sources. He said though he had  initiated departmental proceedings for the suspension of the accused doctor, an order to this effect would however be issued after Eid holidays.

The accused doctor, said to be in his early 30s', is single and was going to tie the nuptial knot later this month.

On Saturday, when he was produced before the additional session judge for remand, some lawyers tried to rough him up.

The local medical fraternity however condemned the lawyers’ attitude.

“We had already made it clear that if allegations are proven, the law should take its course. Nonetheless, the attitude of lawyers is condemnable,” said Dr Wajid Khan, president PMA, Poonch chapter.

…. Tariq Naqash