Karachi: Paramilitary Rangers raided the Ziauddin Hospital and seized records from the finance, IT and administration departments besides rounding up the administrator of the hospital on Saturday.
The raid was carried out on the Nazimabad hospital, the parent facility of the Ziauddin chain of hospitals, owned by Dr Asim Hussain, the former petroleum minister who was arrested this week and currently in custody of the Rangers.
Sources said that the raiding team of the Rangers interrogated many of the staff at the different departments and then took many files and Dr Yusuf Sattar, the administrator of the hospital.
The raid came a day after its chief, major general Bilal Akbar called on Sindh chief minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah to explain the reasons of the arrest of Dr Hussain, who is also the chairman of provincial Higher Education Commission, a position equivalent to that of a minister.
An enraged Shah in a media briefing dubbed the frequent raids of the federal agencies on the provincial ministers and officials as ‘an invasion on Sindh.’
The chief minister said that the arrest of Dr Hussain was a major incident and it was unfair and regrettable that the concerned agencies did not inform him before taking action against the ex-minister.
Shah told the media that he had already discussed the matter of federal agencies meddling with the provincial affairs with the prime minister.
“I told the prime minister that sir it (raids) amounts to invasion on Sindh,” he said.
Regarding his meeting with the Rangers chief, Shah said that he told the director general of the Rangers that he (Shah) should have been informed about the complaints against Dr Hussain.
The chief minister was optimistic that Dr Hussain, who is a close aide of former president Asif Ali Zardari, would be respectfully released.
Meanwhile, the Rangers has submitted the medical reports of Dr Hussain into an anti-terrorism court (ATC) that remanded the doctor into the Rangers custody. The medical examination of Dr Hussain was taken on the requests of his lawyers, who complained that his client was suffering from diabetes and heart disease.
The medical reports suggested that Dr Hussain’s blood sugar and pressure were in normal range as he was being dosed with the prescribed medicines. Two nurses were also appointed to take care of Dr Hussain for 24 hours.
