TOBA TEK SINGH: The doctors, nurses and paramedics of the Jhang District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital observed a strike on Monday in protest against alleged torture of a nurse and harassment of others by attendants of a patient in the trauma centre late on Saturday night.

The outpatient department of the hospital remained closed due to the strike.

Pakistan Medical Association, Jhang chapter, President Dr Muhammad Ijaz claimed there was no security staff to protect the doctors and nurses from the hooliganism of the patients’ attendants that had become a routine. He said the police post established at the hospital for security lacked personnel. He demanded protection for the doctors and other staffers.

Jhang’s Kotwali police on Monday registered a case against six attackers. In the first information report (FIR) security supervisor Allah Ditta claimed that the suspect, Samar Ijaz Bhutta, and his five accomplices attacked the staff nurse, Samina, and misbehaved with doctors and paramedics.

The suspects claimed that they had brought their patient in serious condition but the duty nurse was asleep and she got offended when her sleep was disturbed. They alleged that the nurse as well as the hospital staff scuffled with them.

No arrest has been made in the case.

SHOT DEAD: An unidentified man shot dead a security guard of T&T Colony, Satiana Road, Faisalabad, and injured his colleague as well as a passer-by.

Police said security guards, Muhammad Ashraf and Usman Ali, were standing at the colony’s main gate when the unidentified suspect reached there on a motorcycle and opened indiscriminate fire on them. As a result, both guards and an unidentified passer-by were wounded. The injured were rushed to the DHQ hospital where Ashraf succumbed to his wounds.

In another incident, a teenage boy was wounded when his clothes got entangled in a sugarcane crushing machine at a farm in Chak 152-GB Bhindianwala.

Rescue 1122 reported that Zaid Akhtar (14) was pushing sugarcane into the machine when the accident took place. He was shifted to the Toba Tek Singh DHQ Hospital.

Meanwhile, a minor girl was severely burnt at Chak 200-RB, Lathianwala, Faisalabad. According to Rescue 1122, Zainab, a daughter of Asif, was sitting near a gas heater when her clothes caught fire. As a result, she was critically burnt and was shifted to the burn unit of the Allied Hospital.

SUICIDE: A man allegedly committed suicide by jumping into Gogera Branch Canal near Jhal Bridge in Jaranwala.

Rescue 1122 identified the deceased as Muhammad Asif (30) of Shaukatabad locality who jumped into the canal and drowned. The cause of the suicide could not be confirmed. The body of the deceased was being searched by Rescue 1122 divers when this report was filed.

INJURED: At least 18 passengers of a van were injured when it rammed into a tractor-trolley laden with sugarcane parked on the roadside at Adda Dallowal near NHA toll plaza on Faisalabad-Samundri Road in a fog-related accident.

Rescue 1122 said six of the injured who had minor injuries were given first aid on the spot while 12 critically wounded were shifted to the Allied Hospital and the DHQ Hospital.

They included Nadeem, 45, Ahsan, 60, his wife Nasreen Bibi, 55, Abdul Waheed, 23, Faryad, 45, Samina Kausar, 45, Raheel, 35, Javed, 52, Saleem 38, Ali Hassan, 42, his daughter Dua Perveen, 13, and Sidra, 25.

The van was Faisalabad-bound and it was coming from Pirmahal.

Published in Dawn, january 3th, 2023