February 06, 2005
Rape of Medical Doctor Creates Uproar in Pakistani Community
The assault and rape of a medical doctor associated with Pakistan Petroleum Limited in Sui, Balochistan has created an uproar among the Balochi community and anger among the Pakistani Medical community. The Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America has also condemned the event and demanded justice for the doctor.
On the night of January 2nd , Dr. Shazia Khalid, a lady doctor who was working for the Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) in Balochistan was raped . The incident occurred in Sui tehsil of the Dera Bugti district, 343 kms off Quetta. Unidentified people barged into the doctor’s house and gang-raped her. The victim remained unconscious for three days in the PPL hospital in Sui and was then shifted to a hospital in Karachi where she could be given proper treatment. However, a spokesman for the PPL denied media reports of the gang-rape and said the lady doctor had recorded a statement saying that a few persons broke into her room and manhandled her when she resisted. According to the spokesman, the accused escaped after looting jewellery and cash.
It is alleged that PPL and Defense Security Guards blocked timely investigation of the case. According to police officials, the PPL management did not allow the police to record the statement of the victim. The office-bearers of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), Quetta condemned the incident and announced a protest movement from January 10th. The PMA members said that they would wear black armbands and press the authorities for arresting the culprits, failing which they would ask all the lady doctors in the province to stop work.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) attacked the gas line in Sui and claimed that the attack was in retaliation to gang rape. An elder member of the Bugti tribe and the Secretary-General of the PPL Workers Union, Ghulam Sarwar Bugti strongly condemned the rape of the doctor and alleged that an army captain and three members of Defense Security Guards were responsible for this crime. A large posse of troops has been deployed at the gas field after the clashes with the militants. The Government of Pakistan blames disgruntled tribesmen seeking a larger share of oil and gas wealth for the attacks.
On January 12th, the lady doctor, Dr. Shazia was examined by a woman medico-legal officer, who handed over her findings to the police and the victim. The victim’s statement was also recorded by a police official, and it was made a part of the FIR. In her statement, she said that she was assaulted but she failed to identify the men who broke into her room. The official sources claimed a bed sheet with blood stains, broken hair and condoms were found from her room of the hostel, and they were sent for medical examination. Meanwhile, a notice was served on Dr Shazia asking her to appear before a judicial tribunal on January 17th .
Preliminary police investigations confirmed that Dr. Shazia was raped; the police have demanded that PPL officials explain why they concealed facts related to the case. The district police officer (DPO) of Naseerabad has notified PPL manager Prof. Pervez Jamula to explain why the PPL administration failed to notify the police of the rape for three days. PPL has been accused of distorting, even hiding, facts from the Naseerabad police station as well as from a psychiatry hospital in Karachi, where its staff tried to present the lady doctor as a “depressed, traumatized” patient. PPL officials presented Dr. Shazia as a victim of theft and burglary with a view to move her from Sui to avert danger to her life but in Karachi, their first attempt was to have her admitted to a psychiatry clinic to avoid the medico-legal procedure which is mandatory for a rape victim.
A certain Captain Hammad has been accused by Baloch nationalists of committing the rape. He has been produced on a TV channel where he declared he was innocent. But the media have not been allowed to speak with him. At the same time, Dr. Shazia is also not allowed to speak to the media.
APPNA (Association of Pakistani Physicians of North American) has offered help to Dr. Shazia vis-à-vis her resettlement in the US and her DNA analysis. APPNA president, Dr. Hussain Malick set up the APPNA Sui Rape Victim Task Force to help the victim and the process of justice.
On 28 January, the police arrested 3 people , including PPL Sui chief executive Pervez Jamula, chief medical officer Dr. Mohammed Usman and deputy chief medical officer Dr. Mohammed Ali for their alleged involvement in the case of Dr. Shazia Khalid. The accused were denied bail before arrest.
Asian-American Network against Abuse of Women (ANAA) has put together a petition to be sent to the Pakistani ambassador to the US, Jehangir Karamat. The petition asks the Government of Pakistan to ensure that justice is provided to Dr. Shazia Khalid.
Please sign the petition here.
Related Links
A First Step to the End of Honor Killings
olested School Girls and the Mystery of Skewed Literacy Ratios
Gender Inequalities – The Case of The Missing Millions
Posted by collective at February 06, 2005 06:58 PM
It is unfortunate that women are raped and the managers of PPL try to hide the atrocity. I ask Government of Pakistan to find the culprits, punish them, then punish the management of PPL as co conspirators.
i think there can be two suspects
1. the local ppl who wanted some inciting reason to make situation politicaly volatile against the government.
2. Secondly the accussed guy capt. hammad.
what i donot understand how did suspicion of hammad's involvement was raised.
if any body knows more pls let me pls post on this site.
sam
French FM praises Mukhtar Mai for breaking silence
PARIS: France's foreign minister on Monday hailed Mukhtar Mai for
breaking the silence on a system that allowed tribal elders to order
her gang-raped as a punishment.
"I am happy to have received Mukhtar Mai because she had the courage
to break the silence in her country, and also to tell her that
France totally supports her in her fight for women's rights in her
country and in the world," said Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-
Blazy after meeting with Mai.
She was in Paris to promote a book about her ordeal, `Dishonored',
to be published in several European countries and the US, said
Beatrice Calderon, spokeswoman for the Oh publishing house.
Mai's case attracted international attention. In November, she was
awarded $20,000 (euro 16,477) by the US magazine Glamour and named
its Woman of the Year for her fight against oppression in her
homeland.
Mai, 36, dressed in an immaculate white sari and looking timid,
thanked the minister through a translator, saying she hoped he would
visit Pakistan.
The tribal elders had ordered Mai raped by four men to punish her
for what they claimed was her 13-year-old brother's alleged affair
with a woman above his class – an allegation she and her family deny.
In Pakistan, using rape to restore a family's honour is not unusual.
Victims sometimes kill themselves in shame.
Mai launched a battle against the practice, and against oppression
of women. She has opened at least one school and plans to launch a
women's crisis centre.
A court in 2002 sentenced six men to death and acquitted eight
others in Mai's rape. Last March, the Lahore High Court acquitted
five of the men and reduced the death sentence of the sixth to life
in prison. After an emotional appeal by Mai, the acquittals were
overturned in June and 13 men originally held in the case were re-
arrested. They remain in
jail while Pakistan's Supreme Court considers the matter. ap
_________________________________________________
The French disbeliever clams that France supports her in her fight
for women's rights in France?
So does France support the people who fight for women's rights in
France?
The nation of the Hijab Ban, which mean:
Which means women being pushed in to dressing like prostitutes, but
Muslim women and girls are banned from covering their hair and
dressing modestly!
Women having to obey men when they tell them to, uncover but being
banned from obeying Allah when Allah tells them to cover.
Muslim Girls aren't allowed to go to School.
Muslim women lose jobs.
Muslim women and girls are not given medical treatment if ill or
dying.
So who fights for their rights?
Lets be honest the French could not care less about the rights of
Muslims women, in France or the rest of the world.
The French army used rape as a means of war in Algeria, and those
rapists are treated as heroes in France! Many French politicians
boost about the war crimes they committed when they were murdering
and raping Muslims in Algeria.
So if the French MP really cared about women's rights, he would
start by fighting to have his rapists Friends in the French
parliament arrested, and end with giving Muslim women in France the
right to dress anyway they want instead of the way French Men tell
them to dress!
What happened to her was Musharaf's fault. And he should be punished
for it.
Courts in all nations dispense Justice in the name of the ruler.
Especially in a military dictatorship like Mushraf ruled Pakistan!
So it was Mushraf's Homosexual officials who raped her younger
brother.
It was Mushraf's court that ordered her gang raped, it was Mushrafs'
Officials who stripped her naked, and paraded her in front of a
crowd, full of cheering Mushraf supporters.
It was Mushraf's police force that held her younger brother hostage
while all this was happening. It was Mushraf's police force who
allowed the rape to take place. It was Mushraf's police force who
refused to arrest the Homosexual perverts and paedophiles who raped
the boy and his sister.
It was Mushraf who ordered that she be put under house arrest while
Mushraf's court freed the people who raped her!
It was one of Mushraf's soldiers who raped a lady doctor; it was
Mushraf's police force which tried to cover up the rape and placed
the lady in an insane asylum so the evidence can be destroyed. It
was Mushraf who forced the lady doctor to leave the country.
It is Mushraf who orders the police to arrest the wives, daughters
and sisters of Islamic activists and hands them over to the Zionist
Americans so that they are raped, tortured and impregnated.
It is Mushraf who keeps on ordering the arrest of the female
Muslims, and it is Musharaf who is still handing them over to the
Americans even though Photos have been published in the press of
Americans raping Muslim women that they have taken hostage.
It is Mushraf who allows the Indian government to rape Kashmiri
Muslims. It is Mushraf who arrests the only people who try and help
them.
These rapes will continue as long as Musharaf is left in power.
Musharaf supports rape and rapists. It is only criminals, rapists
and agents of foreign enemies who support him!
It is time for the Pakistani army to stop raping Muslim women for
Musharaf. It is time for them to stop Murdering Muslims for
Musharaf.
And it is time for them to remove Musharaf and replace his evil
Qadyani government with the Islamic Khilafah, in the name of Allah!
www.geocities.com/headscarfban
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/headscarfban/
http://www.geocities.com/hijabhypocrisy/
for us the issue of Dr. Shazia Khalid seems dead now... but for Dr. Shazia who was forced to leave pakistan to saver her life it is still open and she still needs justice...
would anyone among us would like to ask our dismissed general purvez musharaf as to HOW DID HE DARE TO DECLARE CAPTAIN HAMMAD INNOCENT WHEN HE WAS BEING TRIALED FOR THE RAPE CHARGES... and ultimately he was declared innocent by the HONOURABLE courts as well....
Our sympathies and regrets with dr shazia khalid...
Dr. Shazi rape is an absolute disgrace and if the authorities did not act promptly its equally reprehensible.
If she reads this or anyone knows her whereabouts I would like to establish contact with her.
richardpill@joburg.org.za
regards
Richard
