The official said another four detainees presently undergoing treatment at the medico-legal ward of the hospital were also brought in a “bad shape”.—File Photo

PESHAWAR: Authorities at a public sector hospital here are perturbed over the manner in which missing persons are brought there by intelligence agencies in critical condition and with slim chances of their survival, an official at the hospital said.

The official at the Lady Reading Hospital, the biggest public sector hospital in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said four people who were among the 11 prisoners who went missing from Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail were brought to the hospital in precarious condition and doctors there had no chance to save them.

The four detainees — Mohammad Aamir, Tehseenullah, Said Arab and Syed Abdul Saboor — died in mysterious circumstances at the hospital over the past few months.

The official said another four detainees presently undergoing treatment at the medico-legal ward of the hospital were also brought in a “bad shape”.

With the Supreme Court set to resume hearing on Thursday in the case of 11 prisoners who went missing from Adiala jail, personnel of an intelligence agency and police have been keeping an eye on the medico-legal ward, where the four detainees have been undergoing treatment.

The security sleuths have not been allowing any person, including family members, to meet the four detainees.

Four of the 11 detainees have died, another four have now been at the Lady Reading Hospital, whereas about the other three the counsel for intelligence agencies had informed the apex court that they were at an internment centre at Parachinar, Kurrum Agency.

The 11 prisoners were acquitted by an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi in different cases of terrorism. But they went missing mysteriously on May 28, 2010, after the Lahore High Court ordered their release.

Initially, the government continued to express ignorance about them, but in Dec 2010 counsel for intelligence agencies admitted that they were in their custody. He, however, claimed they were arrested from a conflict zone.

He had said the detainees would be tried by a court martial under the Army Act. However, despite the passage of over a year since that statement was made, they have not been tried so far. Four of them have died.

The official at the LRH told Dawn that these four detainees, two of whom are brothers of the dead Abdul Saboor, were suffering from multiple ailments and had they been referred to the hospital earlier, complications would not have arisen.

He confided to Dawn that one of the detainees was suffering from disease of urine retention, one had intestinal obstruction while another was suffering from hernia and needed to be operated upon immediately.

Two of them, he added, were constantly running high fever, he said. “All the four have been suffering from scabies,” the official said.

The four detainees had not been referred to LRH by any hospital. Instead, he said, they were brought by intelligence agencies.

The hospital had earlier communicated to the said agency not to bring prisoners at such a belated stage because in similar cases in the past the hospital had to take the blame for deaths.

Relatives of the two brothers, Abdul Majid and Abdul Basit, complained that except for a brief meeting on Jan 31, the authorities were not allowing anyone to visit them.

A policeman at the entrance of Plastic and Reconstruction Unit said he was under orders not to allow anyone to enter the premises except hospital workers.

UNDER WATCH: A number of intelligence men, in plain clothes, are keeping an eye on the said premises.

The other two detainees kept there have been identified as Dr Niaz Ahmed and Gul Roze.

During a hearing on Jan 30, a bench of the Supreme Court had directed the counsel for the Inter Services Intelligence and the Military Intelligence (MI) to produce the detainees on Feb 9.