LAHORE, Pakistan, June 1 (Reuters) – At least four gunmen attacked a hospital in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore on Tuesday morning, killing up to a dozen people and holding several hostage before escaping, a senior doctor told Reuters.
“They barged into the hospital building and opened indiscriminate fire,” said Javed Ikram, Chief Executive of Jinnah hospital.
He said at least 12 people were killed in the firing while some had been held hostage. However, other accounts put the number dead at five.
Senior city government official Sajjad Bhutta told Reuters, “They were four gunmen clad in elite police uniform, and entered the hospital building and opened fire. Then they ran towards the intensive care unit where their companion was being treated.”
Police guards fired back, he said, and they fled. One of them was wounded.
The five dead included three policemen, a woman and a private security guard, he said.
Dozens of people wounded in Friday’s attacks on two mosques of a minority religious community in the city were being treated in the hospital, which is a major institution in the city. More than 80 people were killed in those attacks.
The attackers were either trying to rescue or kill a wounded attacker from Friday’s assault who was being treated in the Intensive Care Unit of Jinnah Hospital, said Punjab police chief Tariq Saleem Dogar.
A Reuters reporter saw the bodies of four policemen.
“There are blood patches at the entrance of the hospital building,” a Reuters reporter said. “Pillows, biscuits and other food stuff and shoes are strewn on the floor.”
People and patients who were able ran from the hospital and television footage showed exhausted looking women climbing over security fences to escape.
The attackers themselves fled after the mayhem, officials said.
“They escaped from the scene,” Lahore commissioner Khusro Pervez Khan told Reuters. “We are in hot pursuit. We are chasing them. One of them was wounded.”
A witness told Reuters that a police commando team had stormed into the hospital. (Reporting by Mubasher Bukhari in Lahore, and Kamran Haider and Zeeshan Haider in Islamabad; Editing by Jon Boyle and Chris Allbritton)
Musharraf power theft scandal case: Low level workers punished
Islamabad, Sep 17 (ANI): The Islamabad Electric Supply Company (Iesco) has only punished 64 junior officers for their involvement in the power theft scandal involving former President Pervez Musharraf, Shaukat Aziz and others in the luxurious Chak Shahzad farmhouses.
The big guns in the electricity department have not even been touched, according to well-placed sources.
The list of punished employees includes 35-meter readers, 14 line superintendents and 15 sub-divisional officers, The News reports.
Sources said these personnel were those who had to implement the orders of the higher-ups and no high-ranking official has been touched in the order passed by Iesco on 10-9-2009.
The official spokesman for Iesco, Ameer Hussain Chaman, when asked about the punishment, said he was not aware of any such punishments.
“I have not been conveyed any such details, therefore, I cannot offer any comment over the issue,” he added.
Sources said Colonel Umer Hayat was conducting the inquiry and on 9-9-2009 his tenure was completed and on 10-09-2009 these personnel were punished.
They say that in this power-theft scandal the higher-ups passed all the orders and the junior officers had no option, but to obey the orders.
It is worth mentioning here that Musharraf had constructed a modern house on the farm obtained for breeding poultry and vegetables, but the ex-general has been enjoying the cheapest power tariff, D-2(1) connection, which is meant for agriculture tube wells and lift irrigation pumps. (ANI)