KARACHI: An investigation by a medical board, into the Sindh Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) raid at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) additional police surgeon’s office, has confirmed the involvement of the medico-legal officer in issuing fake medical certificates, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Initial probe has revealed that the hospital’s additional police surgeon has collected bribe worth million of rupees and issued hundreds of fake medical certificates.
A team of Sindh ACE, accompanied by South Judicial Magistrate-VI Tahir-ur- Rehman raided the office of JPMC Additional Police Surgeon Dr Afzal Ahmed and seized record of medical certificates issued by him.
Sindh ACE spokesman Farhat Imtiaz told Pakistan Today that complainant namely Shabir Afzal had requested for an action against Dr Afzal Ahmed for issuing a fake medical certificate.
“On his complaint, Sindh ACE raided office of Dr Afzal Ahmed and seized record from there,” the spokesman said, adding that “Sindh ACE has started an investigation, but it would be unprofessional to issue any comments on this stage”.
Earlier, there were several reports regarding the issuance of fake medical certificates but such reports could not be verified due to non-cooperative attitude of complainants.
Talking to Pakistan Today, ACE South-Zone Inspector Zahid Hussain Mirani claimed that a letter was written to the Sindh Health secretary to form a medical board to investigate a medical certificate issued by Dr Afzal Ahmed.
“The Health secretary constituted the board to evaluate medical certificate issued by Dr Afzal Ahmed, Inspector Mirani said, adding that “Medical Board conducted an examination of the person, who was issued with the certificate and the findings established that Dr Afzal Ahmed has issued a fake certificate.”
“When the Medical Board issued its finding report to the Sindh Health secretary, then complainant Shabir Afzal approached the Sindh ACE with the findings”, Inspector Mirani added.
“Complainant Shabir Afzal on the basis of Medical Board’s finding report requested Sindh ACE Chairman Ghulam Qadir Thebo for action against Dr Afzal Ahmed,” Inspector Mirani said, adding that “On directives of Sindh ACE chairman a raid was conducted in presence of judicial magistrate and records of medical certificate issued by the additional police surgeon were taken into custody for scrutiny.”
Responding to a question, Inspector Mirani said, “the Medical Board report declared medical certificate issued by Dr Afzal Ahmed as fake, but we will scrutinise other certificates issued by the additional police surgeon to implicate him in cases related to corruption”.
“Another task assigned to us is to look into the involvement of other officials of the JPMC Medico-Legal Office (MLO) Section in fake medical certificates issuance business,” Inspector Mirani concluded.
