Prosecution of doctors stayed
The Supreme Court yesterday stayed for four weeks a High Court order directing the government to prosecute four doctors of Shariatpur, including Civil Surgeon Golam Sarwar, for preparing a fallacious autopsy report of Hena Akter.
The three other doctors are Resident Medical Officer Nirmal Chandra Das and medical officers Rajesh Majumder and Hosne Ara of Shariatpur General Hospital. They prepared the much-talked-about autopsy report of Hena, which totally avoided mentioning injury marks on the victim's body.
Fifteen-year-old Hena of Shariatpur was raped by her cousin Mahbub, 40, on January 23. In local arbitration the next day, she was lashed at least 50 times upon a Fatwa (religious edict). Hena succumbed to her injuries on January 31.
Chamber judge of the Appellate Division Justice MA Wahhab Miah passed the order after hearing a petition the doctors filed on April 12 seeking stay on the HC order.
The judge also asked the doctors to file a regular leave to appeal petition with the apex court against the HC order within four weeks.
Advocate Anisul Huq, counsel for the doctors, said the government cannot take any action against his clients during the next four weeks.
The HC on March 28 termed the autopsy report disturbing and said criminal proceedings will be drawn against them on charges of damaging and concealing evidence and trying to hide the truth.
Citing that the doctors depicted the death as a case of suicide, the HC bench of Justice AHM Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik and Justice Sheikh Md Zakir Hossain said Civil Surgeon Golam Sarwar primarily masterminded the whole episode.
It had also ordered the health secretary and the director general (DG) of Directorate of Health to take departmental actions against the four physicians immediately.
The HC also directed the head of Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council to take statutory action against the four doctors.
The court passed the order after examining the probe report by a seven-member high powered medical board headed by the DG, Directorate of Health.
The medical board was formed as per an HC directive on February 10 to find the reasons for information varying in two autopsy reports -- one prepared by four doctors of Shariatpur General Hospital and the other by DMCH doctors.
The DMCH doctors confirmed a good number of injury marks on Hena's body and reported that the reason behind the death was haemorrhage followed by septicaemia shock as a result of wound from blunt object and were ante-mortem and homicidal in nature.
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