Three patients died when hundreds of lawyers attacked a hospital in Lahore during a furious dispute with doctors.
Video showed the lawyers ransacking wards at the cardiac hospital, beating up staff and smashing equipment.
As panic spread, doctors and paramedics hid, leaving patients unattended, including those in a critical state.
Riot police fired tear gas to disperse the lawyers and more than 20 arrests were made. It took more than two hours to restore order, officials said.
The lawyers had been protesting over the alleged mistreatment of some of their colleagues by hospital staff last month.
But the final trigger for the violence appears to have been a video posted on social media by a doctor on Tuesday night in which he poked fun at the lawyers.
According to hospital administrators, more than 200 lawyers wielding sticks stormed Lahore’s Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) at midday on Wednesday.
Hospital officials said the lawyers forced their way past security and split into groups, attacking various departments and wards.
Video footage shared on social media showed lawyers – in suits and ties – smashing medical equipment and windows, and beating up staff and officials including Punjab information minister Fayazul Hasan Chauhan who had arrived on the scene to try to restore calm.
They also stormed the nurses’ hostel, breaking furniture and beating some of the staff, an official complaint from the hospital says.
Lawyers also damaged several cars parked outside the hospital and set at least one police van on fire.
Some of the protesters allegedly fired gunshots in the air when riot police intervened.
Hospital sources said at least three patients – a woman and two men – died because doctors could not attend to them during the violence. It is believed that the woman had been in the intensive care unit.
Police reinforcements were eventually deployed, leading to more scuffles in which several lawyers were injured.
Officers said later they had arrested more than 20 lawyers and filed complaints against about 250 on charges of violence and assault.
There has been simmering anger among young lawyers since 20 November when half a dozen of them accompanied a colleague to the hospital for the treatment of his sick mother, says the BBC’s M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad.
There they got into an argument with hospital staff and a doctor on duty, leading to a fierce fist fight in which the lawyers were outnumbered by the hospital staff.
Both sides filed police complaints against each other but no arrests were made.
