Karachi, 5 October 2019: Doctors at a protest rally on Thursday, 5th September 2019 fired a broadside at their counterparts in the neighbouring India for not helping the Kashmiris who were being injured in atrocities by the Indian troops in the occupied valley and keeping a mum against the inhuman proceedings continued with impunity there.
“We all doctors here in Pakistan condemn the doctors in India for not helping the people being targeted by the Indian troops in the occupied Kashmir and not raising voice for their rights,” said eminent gynaecologist Dr Shershah Syed while addressing the protesting doctors gathered outside the Karachi Press Club.
The protest was jointly organised by the Pakistan Medical Association, Pakistan Islamic Medical Association and Dow University of Health Sciences.
Several leaders of the fraternity spoke on the occasion, including Dr Atif Siddiqui, Prof Mukarram Ali, and Prof Khalid Shafi.
Senior doctors, including Dr Tipu Sultan and scores of medical students and teachers attended the procession.
The protesters were holding placards and banners and chanting slogans condemning the Indian violence in the scenic valley.
Dr Syed called upon the international community to force the Indian government to allow the Pakistani doctors to provide medical aid to the wounded people in Kashmir.
He said Kashmiri women were the worst hit of the current atrocities being committed by the Indian authorities as their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons were being martyred or getting injured incessantly.
“More than a month has passed, yet they are deprived of getting the required medical facilities and are forced to be locked up in their houses,” he added.
The speakers expressed their grave concerns over the worst human tragedy in Kashmir that aggravated after scrapping of Article 370 of the Indian constitution bifurcating and annexing Jammu and Kashmir due to unending violence by the Indian soldiers.
A speaker said several Kashmiris had been killed in the past few weeks while hundreds others had sustained injuries and thousands of Kashmiri people had been arrested.
“The ongoing curfew in the valley imposed by the Indian forces is a cowardly act and we condemn it and express our solidarity with the people in Kashmir,” said a speaker.
The speakers were worried on the declining health delivery system in the Indian-held Kashmir referring the reports about heavy shortage of medicines, life-saving drugs in particular; while, the number of required doctors and paramedics was much less than what was needed.
They said the facilities like dialysis, chemotherapy, ambulances and even number of hospitals had drastically decreased because of increasing violence perpetrated by the Indian authorities.
“Women, pregnant women in particular, children and elderly people are among the worst affected people because of unending violent proceedings there,” said a speaker.
They condemned arrest of a number of doctors in the held valley who had questioned the Indian atrocities in Kashmir.
“Such events are even more terrifying and painful.”
They criticised the comity of nations and international organisations relating to health care for “silently witnessing such a huge catastrophe”.
They demanded the international community to force India to end the continued caging of the people of Kashmir and annulling the scrapping of the Article 370.
Various bodies representing the fraternity asked the United Nations, World Health Organisation, Unicef, Red Cross and other such organisations to put their pressure on India for lifting the continued curfew in Kashmir and restoring human rights of the people living in the valley.
