Karachi, Pakistan - A Catholic nurse trainee has regained consciousness after a Muslim doctor allegedly raped her and threw her from a hospital’s fourth-floor window this month.
The student nurse told media and rights groups that on July 13 several Muslim men, led by Dr. Abdul Jabbar Meammon, beat and raped her, and then threw her from the window of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center (JPMC) to keep her from revealing the abuse.
Meammon, who had taken over a room in the all-female wing of the hospital, has a history of abusing Christian nurses, a hospital administrator said. Dr. Seemi Jamali, chief of JPMC’s Emergency Department, told Compass that Meammon had been suspended from the hospital seven times for drinking alcohol on the job and other misbehavior, and that he was drunk when he assaulted Ashraf.
A medico-legal officer at the hospital who carried out autopsies, Meammon was forcibly occupying a room in the women-only wing of the doctors’ hostel, Jamali said. She added that Meammon is an influential figure backed by a leading political party in Karachi.
The third-year student nurse, Magdalene Ashraf, was unconscious for 56 hours as surgeons fought for her life at the intensive care unit of JPMC and is still in critical condition. On July 19 she gave a statement to police that has not been released. Later that day she spoke to media and a lawyer from the Christian Lawyers’ Foundation (CLF), saying several men took hold of her at 4:30 p.m. on July 13, and after abusing her for several hours threw her from the window.
Ashraf said that fellow nurse Sajjad Fatima tricked her into going into Meammon’s room by telling Ashraf that he wanted to talk with her about a grade on a class assignment. When she arrived, she told media and the CLF, another doctor and Meammon’s driver were also present, and that Meammon grabbed her.
“When I resisted and tried to escape, nurse Fatima slapped both my cheeks and pushed me into Dr. Jabbar,” Ashraf said. “I cried out but no one arrived there to rescue me. They not only gang-raped me, they also tortured me physically and ruthlessly beat me.”
She dismissed claims by Meammon that she jumped out the window.
“If I had jumped myself, my legs would have been fractured, and I would not have had injuries to my head, brain and shoulders,” she said.
Khalid Gill, head of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance in Punjab Province, told Compass that Meammon had a history of sexually harassing female Christian students at the teaching hospital.
Gill and the Rev. Azher Kaleem, general secretary of the Christian Lawyers’ Foundation (CLF), said that after Ashraf was thrown out the window, Meammon also jumped down in order to portray himself as innocent, claiming people trying to harm him were pursuing him as well. His hip injury from the jump was treated at the better-equipped Agha Khan Hospital, where he was hand-cuffed and his feet shackled before being transferred to a holding cell to face charges.
The Rev. Khadim Bhutto of advocacy organization Gawahi Mission Trust told Compass that he had the opportunity to speak with Meammon. According to Bhutto, Meammon said that he was relaxing in his room when Magdalene ran in followed by five unidentified men, from whom both of them eventually fled.
Bhutto said that Meammon was grinning about the incident as he told his version, seemingly pleased with what he had done.
The pastor said police have only charged Meammon and his accomplices with attempted murder, but that Christian organizations are urging police to file gang-rape charges. He added that police have also arrested Dr. Ferhat Abbas and another doctor identified only as Tayyab and are holding them at an undisclosed location.
A preliminary medical examination indicated that Ashraf was raped and tortured, said Natasha Riaz, a fourth-year nursing student.
“The swabs taken from her have confirmed that she was raped, and apart from Dr. Meammon, five other men were also involved,” Riaz said.
One of Ashraf’s family members told Compass that they have continued to receive threats from Meammon; the relative also said that Ashraf had complained of being harassed by him.
Dr. Donald Mall, an administrator with Seventh Day Adventist Hospital, told Compass after visiting the victim that there “are hundreds of rape cases of Christian nurses by doctors which go unreported in Pakistan,” and that the Sindh Province Health Department has ignored them.
Police sources told Compass that they are searching for Fatima, the nurse who is an alleged accomplice of the alleged rapists, and Meammon’s driver, identified only as Arshad, both still at large. Police said that when they arrived at the hospital, administrators stalled them long enough for Fatima to escape.
Since the assault, Christians have staged several demonstrations against religiously motivated violence such as the alleged assault on Ashraf and the July 19 murder of the Rev. Rashid Emmanuel and his brother Sajid Emmanuel, who were accused under Pakistan’s “blasphemy” laws. The latest demonstrations took place in Karachi on Saturday (July 24), Sargodha the next day and in Lahore today