KOHAT, Feb 9: Tense calm prevailed in Kohat city following the murder of three people, including a woman and an infant.

Members of the Hindu community, to which the family belonged, which took out a protest procession on Wednesday and blocked the Hangu-Kohat road for two hours despite heavy rain and severe cold to condemn the incident.

They were demanding action against two doctors who had refused to conduct autopsy of the bodies on Tuesday and an independent inquiry into the gruesome incident.

They complained that Hindus in Pakistan were treated as third grade citizens due to the Indian factor as compared to Christians who, they said, were given much attention because of the US, IMF and World Bank pressure.

District nazim Malik Asad and SSP Dr Ishtiaq Marwat held negotiations with elders of the community who had placed the three bodies on the road and were chanting slogans against the administration for "hiding facts behind the murders".

Shankar Lal, his wife Sangeeta and their three-month-old baby Sumeer were killed by unidentified men inside their house in the Bahadar Kot village three days back. However, the family members of the deceased and the police learnt about the incident on Tuesday evening and recovered the decomposed bodies from the house.

The SSP had earlier said that the male victim, Shankar Lal, an employee of the Kohat University, practised black magic and had been warned time and again to stop the practice. The administration had been receiving complaints against him for quite some time and despite several warnings he continued the business.

The protesters opened the road to traffic at 1pm following assurances given by the nazim that strict disciplinary action would be taken against the doctors and the culprits involved in the murder would be punished.

The district government later served show-cause notices on Dr Khalid and Dr Riffat Qureshi of Liaquat Memorial Hospital who had allegedly refused to conduct post-mortem on the bodies.

The action against the two doctors was taken on the orders of the NWFP director-general of health department, it was officially learnt.

A Dawn investigation regarding the hospital issue revealed that a cold war was going on between the SSP and the medical superintendent of the KDA/LMH hospitals for some time who had developed some personal grudge against each other over sanction of medical bills.

Therefore, the LMH staff had refused to conduct post-mortem and referred the bodies for autopsy to KDA hospital. There, the medical officer on duty, Dr Jan e Alam, prepared post-mortem reports of Shankar Lal and the minor, Sumeer, but informed the police that he could not conduct autopsy of the female victim.

Dr Riffat Qureshi for some unknown reasons had already refused to conduct autopsy of Sangeeta.

The doctors said that the SSP had removed police staff from the emergency of the KDA hospital last week due to which they were facing serious problems in attending patients of accidents and murder cases. Because they could not admit or even touch the crime victims unless a proper case had been registered in the police station concerned or at least a police official was present in the emergency.

The bodies were taken to Attock for rituals and burning by the Hindu community after action had been taken against the doctors.