New Delhi: They are qualified surgeons and have treated the worst of cases in the most adverse conditions - in the battle field, at gun point and even in an open ground.

Working in the shadow of the Afghan conflict, Dr Noorul Haque, General Medical Director of Baghlon Province Hospital in Afghanistan and Dr Din Mohammad, General Surgeon at the same hospital were not only fighting for the lives of their patients for years but also for their own.

Recalls Dr Mohammad, "the Taleban brought their injured men directly from the battlefield and we had to treat them...once a person was severely injured, but I was asked to treat him at gun point and told that he should live.

"Treating patients at gunpoint that way was hell," says Dr Mohammad, however, heaving a sigh of relief that things have finally changed. The two doctors are in New Delhi to attend an international conference on spinal injuries.

"Another time, one of the Taleban men was already in coma when he was brought to me and I was 'clearly told' that he should not die... I am just a doctor, not God and moreover, working without trained paramedical staff, instruments and medicine was very difficult," says Dr Mohammad.

Dr Haque, who studied at the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune and later at a Lucknow hospital some 20 years back, says with pride that he was the doctor in the Northern Alliance Army during the Taleban years.

"I was treating the Northern Alliance soldiers, but was hauled up many times by the Taleban men. However, they left me with a warning that I should stop treating the Alliance men," he recalls.

Those days are gone... and the immediate task at hand is to bring the hospital and medical facilities back in shape, stocking the emergency supplies for winter and treating the ill, the poor and those who have suffered on the hands of the Taleban, says Dr Haque.

"Many international agencies like the WHO, ICRC, Doctors Sans Frontiers and some NGOs from Italy and Sweden are already there, who are helping us. They have recently readied at 20-bedded hospital in quake-hit areas of Afghanistan.

"Even the Indian specialists recently visited the Northern Balkh Province to give the latest knowledge to our doctors," says Dr Mohammad, adding, "and we are here to learn more about spinal injuries. We have the maximum number of such cases in Afghanistan due to so many years of war".

PTI