NGO threatens ambulance strike following alleged kidnapping

One of Pakistan's most renowned NGOs says it may be instruct its ambulance service to strike if the government does not step in to resolve a dispute between the Edhi Foundation and another women's NGO. "We will go on strike until someone listens to us," the director of the Edhi Foundation, Sattar Edhi, told IRIN on Monday from the southern city of Karachi. The foundation currently has 650 ambulances offering services across the country. The row erupted after the head of the Pakistani NGO Gidan (shelter), Naela Quadri, took 24 women and children on 26 January from a centre run by the Edhi Foundation in Quetta, the provincial capital of the southwestern Balochistan province, claiming that they were being kept in inhumane conditions. "The women sent an urgent message to me asking to rescue them, saying that they were locked in and being harassed. So I went there with a local police officer and six journalists," Qadri told IRIN from Quetta. The women have now been taken to another shelter in the city. "The magistrate's court in Quetta has ordered for the women to stay in Darulaman [women's shelter]," she added. "This accusation is ridiculous. They would not be alive if we were not feeding them and looking after them properly," Edhi commented. According to Edhi, the police accompanying the women's rights activists allowed them to enter the building, located in the Patel Bagh neighbourhood of Quetta, and take the women away. "Is this the way to deal with this? They should have talked to us first if they were concerned about something," he said, threatening to take them to court. Edhi has called on President Pervez Musharraf and local authorities to intervene in the situation. "This is outrageous and the government should listen to our plea," Edhi said.