DTMT Network
Mumbai’s Samajawadi Party Leader Rais Shaikh has sought a ban on shaving beard of Muslims patients before they undergo minor surgeries.

Shaikh has alleged that doctors in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation hospitals ask Muslim patients to shave their beard for performing even minor surgeries.

This has caused discontent among some Muslim patients due to which they approached Shaikh for help and sought a ban on the practice in hospitals.

Shaikh has written to BMC Commissioner Ajoy Mehta and said that having a beard has been a long practice in Islam and many of his Muslim brothers complained that doctors ask them to shave their beard even for minor surgeries.

Shaikh has said that is unacceptable and there should be instructions to doctors that they should ask for shaving of beard only for major surgeries.

Abu Azmi, leader of Samajwadi Party, said that doctors in BMC hospitals are deliberately asking Muslim patients to shave beard. Azmi said that this practice is done in private hospitals only in essential cases.

Mr Girish Mahajan, Medical Education Minister, Maharashtra, said that healthcare should not be associated with religion. Doctors’ decisions should not be linked with religion.