The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has demanded formation of a committee including high-ranking police officials to ascertain the actual cause behind the recent targeted killing of Dr Mehboob in Karachi. “These incidents [murder of doctors] are creating a lot of anxiety among health professionals and their families and resulting in doctors leaving the country,” PMA-Sindh President Dr Samrina Hashmi said in a statement issued on Sunday. She said that Dr Mehboob, a dermatologist, was killed while he was performing his professional duties and demanded that his culprits be apprehended without any delay.
She said that not only have the criminals deprived his family of an obedient son, caring husband and dutiful father but also denied his patients of a committed healthcare provider. “In the past, more than hundred doctors were killed in a series of killings, and there has never been a clue as to why they were murdered and who the killers were,” Dr Hashmi added. Fearing that Dr Mehboob’s murder could be the beginning of another spree of doctors’ killings, she also said this is one of the several reasons of deteriorating medical health care in Pakistan with patients as the ultimate sufferer.
