Doctors in Quetta, on Tuesday, announced an end to their 35-day strike after the chief justice of Pakistan directed them to end their protest and resume duties.
A three-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, while hearing the Balochistan law and order case on Monday, directed the protesting doctors to end their strike. During the hearing, the chief justice remarked that the doctors should end their strike on a humanitarian basis. A representative of the doctors told the bench that the government was well aware about those behind the kidnapping of doctors.
They said that their colleagues were being killed and kidnapped and they had thus been forced to go on strike. Justice Khilji Arif Hussain, member of the bench, remarked that their colleague judge had also been killed but they had not observed a strike.
The representative assured the court that they would end their strike after the orders. However, Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) Balochistan Chapter’s President Sultan, has refused to budge, saying that the strike will continue in government hospitals across the province till their demands are met.