RAHIM YAR KHAN: A three-week-old baby has been kidnapped from the Shaikh Zayed Medical College and Hospital (SZMCH).

Shabbir Khosa, a resident of Dibba Dur Muhammad, Chak 115-P, said he had taken his wife Sofia and a relative woman to the hospital for a check-up at 2pm as she had developed problems after her caesarian from the same hospital. The doctors did not admit her to the gynae ward until 7:30pm when an unidentified woman came out of the ward and offered Sofia help to get admission. She took Sofia, the infant, Usman, and their relative to the gynae ward and showed her that there was no vacant bed.

Sometime later, two other female companions of the unidentified woman took them to the emergency again. At the gate of the emergency, the security guard, Arshad, asked Shabbir to bring meal for him from a nearby restaurant. Meanwhile, the three women took away the infant after leaving Sofia in doctor’s room.

City A Division police registered the FIR against the four suspects, including the security guard, Arshad.

Talking to Dawn, SZMCH Medical Superintendent Dr Afzal Saqib said the unidentified women were present in the gynae ward and they trapped Sofia by developing relations with her. He said the hospital had got the footage of closed-circuit TV (CCTV) cameras installed at the emergency where the faces of all the suspects could be clearly seen and they would soon be behind the bars.

A source said the security in the hospital was bad because of the extra post of the deputy medical superintendent (DMS) security, a unique post created only in SZMCH two years back. He alleged that the DMS security was involved in theft of medicines and cable from the hospital sometime back and he had compensated the loss through salary deduction.

Director Security SZMCH retired Col Manzoor said he was the head of security only in papers while Illyas, a pharmacist who was made DMS security, was actually in charge of security. He said he had written to the administration for the betterment of security and elimination of the post of DMS security but to no avail.

DMS security Ilyas denied the charges against him and the statement of director security, saying he as well as chief security officer were answerable to the director who was head of security.

Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2015

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