By Staff Reporter
QUETTA: She is 29 years old and working her shift at the Civil Hospital when a man she knew walked up to her and threw acid in her face.
The attack on Dr. Mahnoor Nasir on Saturday afternoon was witnessed by security cameras, and what the footage captured was, in one respect, almost as striking as the assault itself: a hospital employee named Abdul Razzaq, seeing his colleague engulfed, ran toward her. He sustained serious burn injuries in the effort.
By Sunday, the acid attack had ignited a crisis that stretched from the wards of Quetta’s government hospitals to the floor of the Pakistani Senate. Young doctors walked off the job. Politicians competed to condemn the assault. The Balochistan chief minister flew to Karachi. And a question hung over the province with no clear answer: why was the alleged attacker, identified by police as Humayun Shah, killed in a law enforcement encounter before he could be arrested, interrogated, and tried?
Stable, but Scarred
Dr. Nasir was airlifted to Karachi at her family’s request following initial treatment in Quetta, and is now receiving care at Aga Khan University Hospital. Sources at the hospital said on Sunday that her condition was stable and described it as satisfactory, though the road to recovery will be long.
She sustained burns across roughly 13 percent of her body — her face, abdomen, legs, and right hand. Her eyes were affected by the acid, leaving her with bilateral corneal opacities, a condition in which the clear surface of the eye becomes scarred. But her vision, the sources said, remains intact. Reconstructive surgeons and ophthalmologists have completed an initial assessment. She is expected to remain in a special care unit for at least 10 days, with the first two spent in the intensive care unit.
A follow-up medical evaluation was scheduled 24 hours after her arrival.
Balochistan Health Minister Bakht Kakar said the suspect had allegedly been harassing Dr. Nasir for several months. Messages recovered from Humayun Shah’s mobile phone, the minister said, contained evidence of that harassment. Kakar noted that Balochistan operates two burn centers, but said the victim was transferred to Karachi at the explicit request of her family.
A Suspect Killed Before He Could Speak
Police said Humayun Shah was traced after the attack as he attempted to flee the city aboard a bus. He was killed in an encounter with law enforcement officers while they were attempting to apprehend him. A case was registered against him at the Civil Lines police station under Section 336-B of Pakistan’s criminal code — the provision covering acid attacks — but with the suspect dead, prosecutors will have no one to try.
That fact has drawn pointed criticism from the Young Doctors Association, which questioned the official account and argued that Shah should have been taken alive.
“All facts surrounding the attack,” the association said in a statement Sunday, “should have been thoroughly investigated” — something that becomes considerably harder, its leaders noted, when the only person who knows the full story is no longer living. The YDA stopped short of alleging wrongdoing but made clear it considered the encounter deeply suspicious.
Hospitals Go Dark
At a press conference on Sunday, the Young Doctors Association announced an indefinite strike affecting outpatient departments and elective services across all government hospitals in Quetta. Emergency care was exempted. The association presented the government with a four-point charter of demands and made clear that services would not resume until those demands were met.
YDA leaders also blamed the attack, at least in part, on what they described as the privatisation of hospital management and security services — a structural failure, in their telling, that left Dr. Nasir without adequate protection in her own workplace.
Medical organisations across the country called for stronger mechanisms to shield female doctors from harassment and violence, a problem that advocates say has long gone insufficiently addressed in Pakistan’s public health system.
Honours for a Hero
Abdul Razzaq was discharged from a private hospital in Quetta on Sunday, where he had been treated for the burn injuries he sustained while coming to Dr. Nasir’s aid. But the recognition for what he did was only just beginning.
Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti, who traveled to Karachi on Sunday to visit Dr. Nasir, announced that a civil award would be conferred on Razzaq. In a post on X, Bugti wrote that Razzaq “displayed extraordinary courage, humanity, and dedication” when he ran to his colleague’s side. The chief minister also spoke with Razzaq by phone, telling him directly: “You served humanity without caring for your own life.” Bugti assured Razzaq that the Balochistan government would cover all of his medical expenses and arrange further treatment at the country’s best facilities if needed.
MNA and First Lady Aseefa Bhutto-Zardari went further, saying she had asked her father, President Asif Ali Zardari, to confer Pakistan’s highest civilian honour on Razzaq for what she called his “selfless gallantry.” The President’s Secretariat confirmed the request.
‘Against Everything Balochistan Stands For’
The condemnations came from across the political spectrum. Senate Deputy Chairman Syedaal Khan described the attack as “cowardly, inhumane, and intolerable.” Balochistan National Party-Mengal president Sardar Akhtar Mengal, in a post on X, framed it in terms of cultural betrayal.
“What happened to the female doctor in Quetta the other day,” Mengal wrote, “goes against our traditions, our values, and everything Balochistan stands for.”
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