LAHORE: The Punjab Home Department has decided to deploy Rangers personnel at important places in Lahore on Thursday to avoid any untoward incident in the city.
Deployment of the Rangers in Punjab has been approved by the interior ministry. They will be stationed outside Governor House, the Punjab Assembly, the Civil Secretariat, the Lahore High Court, GPO Chowk and the Supreme Court Registry.
Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid said that stern action would be taken against the lawyers who tortured doctors, damaged vehicles and obstructed treatment facilities at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology.
Also Read: 12 die after lawyers storm Punjab Institute of Cardiology: young doctors
Presiding over a meeting at Punjab Institute of Cardiology in Lahore, she said Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar has also issued strict orders to take stern action against the violent lawyers.
Dr Yasmin Rashid said no one would be allowed to stop treatment facilities and destroy peace in the hospital.
“We are standing with doctors who have been tortured and will take the culprits to their logical end,” she said.
Two FIRs have been lodged against over 250 lawyers for attacking the Punjab Institute of Cardiology on Wednesday.
One FIR was lodged on behalf of the doctors who were attacked and the police lodged another one.
Anti-Terrorism Act clauses were added in both cases. Sections for beating up the doctors and hospital staff were also added.
PIC is the biggest cardiac hospital in Punjab. Its emergency ward is completely closed and the patients being sent home because of the havoc.
At least 12 patients had died and 25 doctors had been wounded after a group of lawyers on Wednesday stormed the PIC and subjected multiple doctors to torture in Lahore, Young Doctors Association (YDA) claimed.
Videos of the violence committed by lawyers had surfaced on social media. The 12 patients including a woman admitted to the hospital for treatment passed away during this riot.
In the videos, the lawyers can be seen barging into the hospital and smashing glass windows and doors of emergency wards, ICU, CCU and operation theaters. Windows of different vehicles, parked in the vicinity of the medical facility, can also be seen smashed to pieces, Geo News reported.
Punjab Information Minister Fayyazul Hasan Chohan was also not spared.
