A Sindhi nationalist activist and family doctor who abused his position to sexually assault five female patients while pretending to carry out medical

LONDON: A Sindhi nationalist activist and family doctor who abused his position to sexually assault five female patients while pretending to carry out medical examinations has been jailed for seven years.

Dr Haleem Bhatti has been active in London as the foremost leader of the World Sindhi Congress (WSC), a Sindhi nationalist diaspora organization and has been involved in various campaigns. He also represented the WSC at many international forums and spoke against the practices of the Pakistani government but his exposure as a sex pervert has shocked Sindhi nationalists all over the world.

Bhatti picked his victims carefully and when they consulted him for rashes, chest pain and weight gain, taking the opportunity to violate their most private areas. The trial was told in clear how the 48-year-old British Pakistani doctor groped his victims’ breasts, took liberty with their body parts and asked inappropriate questions about their sex lives. The court found Dr Bhatti, who worked at the Greengate Medical Centre in Plaistow, east London, between September 2006 and July 2009, molested the women while he worked as a family doctor. He was cleared of two charges against a sixth woman.

According to a detailed account in the daily Mail newspaper, Judge Simon Davis said the shamed Pakistani qualified medic had “abused his position as a GP” and “deliberately fabricated” his patients’ medical notes to disguise his “dreadful” illegal behaviour.

Sarah Jane Campbell, prosecuting, said Bhatti had to take advantage of the women “under the guise of performing medical examinations”, acted “opportunistically” and left the women feeling “very uncomfortable, upset and stupid” for not stopping him as soon as they suspected he was acting inappropriately.

She said: “There were examinations of the breast or touching of the private parts, in circumstances where there could have been no medical justification for Dr Bhatti to do so. On none of the occasions did he ask the women if they wished to have a chaperone. Invariably he did not wear gloves when touching them, which is against the guidance of the General Medical Council.”

The judge was informed in full details how the patients were abused repeatedly. During police interview Bhatti denied acting inappropriately with any of his patients and claimed that one of the complainants was upset with him because he had not referred her to a specialist as she wished.

Bhatti presented before the court four character witnesses who appreciated his human rights work, his respectful nature, fairness to women but the evidence against Bhatti was overwhelming and convincing.

While sentencing Bhatti, the judge told him: “You are a man who should have known better. There was no need for you to conduct the examination to the extent that you did for the reasons that you did and I find your motive was sexual gratification. You have not come to terms with that in the pre-sentence report. It is quite clear that you still profess your innocence. You will have to take time to consider whether that’s a sensible approach into the future.’

Dr Haleem Bhatti is now likely to be struck off by the GMC and he will have to sign indefinitely as a sex offender. He organized almost all demonstrations against Pakistani military operations and was a key support behind many Baloch and Sindhi groups active in Europe.

Dr Bhatti’s sentencing has horrified these groups and it’s considered a big setback to their movements as their opponents will hold the sex conviction of their leader against them. No one from the World Sindhi Congress was available to comment.

MUHAJIRS WILL NOT BE THROWN IN THE ARABIAN SEA: ALTAF HUSSAIN

Founder and Leader of Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) Mr Altaf Hussain has said that more than three generations of the Muhajirs were buried in Sindh but despite this some of the chauvinist Sindhis refuse to accept the Muhajirs as the rightful citizens or the indigenous people of Sindh. He was addressing a gathering of office-bearers of various wings of the party, sectors and units. Members of the Co-ordination Committee and parliamentarians were also present on the occasion. The address of Mr Hussain was relayed to other parts of the country as well.

Mr Hussain said that he gave the notice of 48 hours to the government for stopping the killings of innocent people and to apprehend the terrorists who were not only destroying the means of livelihood of poor people but also burning down their houses. I would like to ask as to what the crime of the innocent Muhajirs was.

Mr Hussain said that the government had failed to control the law and order situation in Karachi. The Army and Rangers should come to Karachi and protect the lives of innocent people. They should take indiscriminating actions against the elements responsible for creating bloodbath, setting houses and properties on fire. The culprits should be arrested even if they belonged to the MQM. He said that in likewise if the criminals belonged to the PPP and the ANP they should also be brought to book.

Mr Hussain rejected the notion that there was a war of survival going on in Karachi. He said that there was not a single instance of targeted killing and burning of houses when this government was not in power.

Addressing President Asif Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani and Chief Minister Sindh Mr Hussain said that the official patronage to the terrorists and criminals of People Amn Committee and gang war thugs must stop.

Mr Hussain said that when we claimed Muhajir is an identity for us like other national identities in the country the critics said that we had been living here since many years and hence we could not call ourselves as Muhajirs. We transformed the Muhajir Quami Movement into Muttahida Qaumi Movement. Migrants from the East Punjab were assimilated in the West Punjab as the Punjabis but the people who had migrated from the Muslim minority provinces such as Bombay, UP, CP, Bihar, Hyderabad Deccan and other areas of the Indian Subcontinent were never accepted as such.

Mr Hussain said that the MQM was always blamed for the failing law and order situation in Karachi and everything that went wrong here by certain elements despite the fact that the problem existed even before the emergences of the MQM on the scene.

Mr Hussain said that there was no MQM in 1964 but the people of Karachi are witness to the fact that they were punished for their support to the sister of the founding father of the country in the presidential elections against the military dictator General Ayub Khan. He said that truck-loads of heavily armed Pathans were brought in Karachi from the then NWFP who attacked the Muhajir community. Their houses were set on fire, women were dishonoured and thousands of people were butchered just because they had supported Miss Fatima Jinnah in the elections.

Mr Hussain castigated the analysts, journalists and anchor persons who are saying that the situation in Karachi was deteriorating because of the PPP, ANP and the MQM without realizing that the same situation existed in 1964 despite the fact that there was no MQM on the scene in 1964.

Mr Hussain said that more than one hundred poor people living at the bottom of the hills were killed in Qasba Aligarh Colony. The bloodbath of the innocent people of Qasba Aligarh continued without stopping for four days but the police, rangers, provincial government and the federal government were no were to be seen. He asked if these innocent and poor people climbed the hills to resort to firing from there.

Mr Hussain said that in 1973 hardened criminals were taken out of jails in order to punish the Muhajirs whose localities were attacked from Larkana to Karachi. He asked if there was the MQM in 1973.

Mr Hussain said that it was because of the persistent victimization, discrimination and biased treatment given to the Muhajirs that the MQM came into being. He said that there used to be special notes in the advertisement for government jobs that the people living in Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur need not apply. The discriminatory quota system was implemented in Sindh province only. It was because of these flagrant injustices that the Muhajir youths got united and started a long struggle for their rights.

Mr Hussain said that the Muhajirs who had sacrificed everything for the creation of Pakistan were being called bhookay and nangay (hungry and destitute) in Pakistan. The Muhajirs left behind everything for their cherished homeland. They left behind even the graves of their forefathers.

Mr Hussain said that the Muhajirs were not hungry and destitute. They waged a successful struggle to get freedom from the British. Those who were reviling the Muhajirs should know that it was because of them that they got a free country. If the Muhajirs and their forefathers had not struggled for the freedom, those calling them hungry and destitute would still have been licking the boots of the Hindus.

Mr Hussain said that the international community should plead the case of the Muhajirs with the people at the helm of affairs in Pakistan. He asserted that the Muhajirs were true Pakistani and they will not be thrown into the Arabian Sea.

Mr Hussain said that the scope of the MQM had been widened and now it had in its fold people belonging to all the ethnic and linguistic groups living in the country. The MQM was struggling to put an end to the obsolete and decadent feudal system. He said that Pakistan was the only country in the world where this outmoded system still held sway.

He said that the MQM wanted to empower the poor and middle class people in the country. He asked the international community and the ruling establishment as to how long will they continue to lend support the corrupt feudal system in the country. The MQM was not against Pakistan. It was against this corrupt and corrupting feudal system.

Mr Hussain lashed out at the analysts and anchor persons who always said that political parties in the country had a dynastic culture without realizing that the MQM was the only political party in the country that was completely free from the taint of dynastic politics. Mr Hussain said that he had always preached peace, harmony and brotherhood. He appealed to his workers to restrain their emotions and bear with patience.