‘Firing inside hospitals shameful and dastardly’
Doctors Association of Kashmir condemned the firing incident inside District Hospital (DH) Shopian by Police personals calling it ‘shameful and dastardly’.
Dr Suhail Naik, President Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) said, “it is a matter of great shame that police personal resorted to indiscriminate firing inside the premises of District Hospital Shopian after they barged into the hospital to retrieve a dead body. In addition to this dastardly act they also damaged the hospital property. It is sheer luck that none of the staff was injured or killed in this incident. Doctors and other staff are still in a state of mental shock and are not able to deliver their duties effectively since this unfortunate incident.”
Dr Naik said, “according to Geneva Convention, in the war zones hospitals and ambulances are spared but it is very unfortunate these rules are thrown in the trash in this part of the world and we are at the receiving end by making us easy targets. Police, the law protectors are acting as law damagers by resorting to such type of hooliganism.”
Earlier in Shopian, Doctors and Paramedical staff had held a protest against the alleged indiscriminate firing by the armed forces inside the premises of sub-district hospital, Shopian.
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The doctors said that the armed forces fired several rounds at the casualty block and the blood bank inside the hospital following a heated argument with a doctor who asked them to let them do their duty of treating the people injured in Sunday’s clashes.
The doctors and paramedics presented a memorandum to the DC over the incident. Before meeting the DC, the doctors and the paramedical staff held a sit-in outside the hospital.
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The doctors say that they conveyed to the DC that forces resorted to unprovoked firing inside the hospital premises.
Many people have been injured after thirteen militants were killed in separate gunfights at Dragad and Kachdor villages of Shopian on Sunday.
One militant Rouf Bashir Khanday was killed and his associate Imran Rashid was arrested during an overnight gunfight at Brunty Dialgam in Anantnag district.
The Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) of Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Yasin Malik on Sunday called for a Kashmir-wide shutdown. The shutdown call initially was for Sunday and Monday, but was later extended to Tuesday.
Four civilian youth were killed, while a dozen others were injured near the gunfight sites, and the clashes that followed.
