An Ohio University adjunct faculty member was shot and killed Monday
in an attack of religious intolerance against the Ahmadi faith, a sect of Islam, in eastern Pakistan where he was volunteering in a local hospital.
OU officials confirmed that Dr. Mehdi A. Qamar, 50, voluntarily worked with third- and fourth-year university medical students during their clinical rotations as a clinical assistant professor of cardiology in OU's Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine through Fairfield Medical Center.
Qamar worked full-time at the medical center in Lancaster, where he had worked as an interventional cardiologist for more than a decade.
“It is our understanding that Dr. Qamar was on a medical mission in Rabwah, Pakistan when he passed away,” said Cynthia Pearsall, Fairfield Medical Center’s chief nursing officer in a statement. “He will be greatly missed by his colleagues and friends here at Fairfield Medical Center as well as his patients.”
He was shot at least ten times by gunmen while in a cemetery in the Punjab Province of the country, according to The New York Times. He was killed in front of family members including his two-year-old son, while offering his respects to deceased relatives in the cemetery, The Columbus Dispatch reports.
Qamar returned to his native land of Pakistan to volunteer for a second time at the Tahir Heart Institute, an Ahmadi-run hospital specializing in cardiac treatment and offering free medical care to the impoverished. Recently, pamphlets had been distributed outside of the hospital warning Muslims to not receive medical treatment from the institute, the Times reports.
“This is a faith-based target killing of a very precious man who was saving humanity,” said Saleem-ud Din, an Ahmadi spokesman, to the Times. “We want justice.”
Although Stephanie Filson, OU's director of external communications, did not personally know Qamar, she expressed her sadness over the “tragedy.”
“He didn’t have to do these kinds of things,” Filson said. “He did the work he did at Ohio University because he had a love of humanity, apparently.”
Qamar was a group-four faculty member, meaning he did not have a tenured or tenure-track position with the university.
“This adjunct or ‘volunteer’ faculty appointment acknowledges the valuable contributions of our physician educators at our partner hopsitals,” Filson said in an email.
Qamar had been honored as a Legendary Philanthropist by the Fairfield Medical Center’s Foundation in 2013. He was also a founding member of the Gordon B. Snider Cardiovascular Institute in 2011 where he contributed to a number of advances in heart care initiatives, according to the center’s statement.
Qamar was a resident of Pickerington, OH and leaves behind his wife and three sons, ages two, six and 16, Fairfield Medical Center confirmed in a statement.
The last university faculty member who was killed violently was Phillip Bebb, a history professor, who was murdered by his son in 2007, according to university communications.
This is a developing story. Stick with @ThePostCampus for details.
@ohitchcock
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Clarification: An earlier version of this story reported Dr. Qamar was a full-time university faculty member. That is incorrect, and the article now accurately describes Qamar's role with the university as a volunteer, adjunct faculty member.
