Balochistan
Police Release Documents of Dr. Shazia's Rape
Police
Report1 | Report2
| Report3 | Report4
| Report5 | PPL
Letter |
Police
Rebuttal
Musharraf Facing Worsening
Crisis Trying to Protect Rapist Army Officers
Special
SAT Report
DERA
BUGTI/KARACHI, January 15: The Balochistan situation appeared
spinning into a major political and economic crisis for General
Pervez Musharraf on Saturday following shameless official attempts
to protect some Army officers accused of the high profile rape
of a lady doctor in Sui, Dera Bugti.
The rape, and the subsequent cover-up, which took a nasty turn
when Bugti tribesmen fired hundreds of rockets on the Sui Gas
plant and severely damaged it, also confirmed a major breach between
the Army authorities and the local Administration/Police after
the incident.
The Balochistan Police seemed determined to bring the rapist officers
to justice even though the Army had imposed a country-wide unofficial
and undeclared media ban, forbidding any newspaper or TV channel
to name the culprits or even identify their organization –
the Pakistan Army.
To counter this blatant highhandedness, the Police released hard
evidence containing documents and copies of reports of investigations
to the South Asia Tribune on Friday, Jan 14, to get worldwide
support for their case against the Army.
This Police-Army tussle was on-going as most of the Gas-run industries
and bulk of domestic users in 10 major cities throughout Pakistan
faced 10-14 hours of gas load-shedding.
Sui
Gas officials made it clear the damage caused by the hundreds
of rockets and mortars fired on their plant was much more severe
than first estimated and a country-wide shortage of natural gas
was inevitable, bringing major industries to cut their operations
and domestic consumers to use expensive alternate fuels.
But as the country prepared for a worsening gas and industrial
crisis, thousands of Pakistan Army troops were gathering in Balochistan
to start, what senior politician and former Governor Nawab Akbar
Khan Bugti said would be an operation in which many top Baloch
leaders may be targeted and killed.
He claimed that about 3,000 army men and 12 helicopters gun ships
had landed in nearby Sibi. Frontier Constabulary with its 7,000
personnel is already present in the Bugti area. The Defence Security
Group (DSG) have 750 men who are deployed in Sui. “Therefore,
we are already under siege and are going to be hit by a military
operation. No one can say who will die and who will stay alive.”
Musharraf
himself had issued a public warning two days back saying “this
is not the era of 70s and the nationalists would not even know
what hit them”.
Many
Baloch leaders, including son of Nawab Khair Buksh Marri and senior
politician Mir Hasil Bizenjo plainly told General Musharraf, while
speaking on Dubai-based TV channels, the Army itself would not
know what would hit it. “Did you know what hit the Sui Gas
plant,” Hasil Bizenjo asked on Geo TV, rejecting Musharraf’s
threats. Marri told ARY TV’s Dr Shahid Masood the nationalists
too had weapons made in 2005 and not the rifles of 1970s.
The surprise political shock for Musharraf, however, came from
his most dependable ally, Altaf Hussain of MQM, who publicly warned
that if a military operation was launched in Balochistan, his
party would quit the ruling coalition. He
told thousands of his supporters on a telephonic address the MQM
was opposed to any military operation and may quit, if it was
launched.
The pro-Musharraf provincial government in Balochistan was caught
between the rock and the hard place and appeared so pathetically
helpless it could only issue an appeal to the rapists to “voluntarily”
come and explain their position. But in undertones the provincial
cabinet tried to convey the message to the Pakistan Army that
an operation would destroy their credibility leaving the ground
open for nationalists.
The sheer impotence of the political government vis-à-vis
rapists of the Army was evident from this statement released after
a cabinet meeting on Friday: “Stressing the arrest of the
suspects/accused involved in the unpleasant incident with the
lady doctor, the cabinet recommended that the persons whose names
were being mentioned in the incident should explain voluntarily
so that the situation might clear.”
"Since
when have provincial cabinets started meeting in emergency sessions
after one rape," "And since when has the State started
'appealing' to criminals asking them to 'explain' their position,
unless the criminals are rulers in uniform."
The Police investigation into the Dr Shazia Khalid rape case revealed
a massive cover-up as an Army officer, named by Nawab Akbar Bugti
as Captain Ammad, with two accomplices, were accused of the rape
on the night of Jan 2-3, 2005. One of them was identified in an
official letter as Amjad.
Police officers of Dera Bugti, themselves embarrassed and insulted
by the doctor’s rape, as this is considered to be the highest
insult for a Baloch tribesman, pursued the probe vigorously and
documented their experience at every stage, despite stonewalling
by Pakistan Petroleum Company (PPL) the employer of the doctor
serving at Sui. Obviously the PPL management was under Army pressure
not to let the case get out of control lest the officers involved
were caught and punished.
Documents of Police investigations and the cover-up were made
available to the South Asia Tribune on Friday and included
a five page detailed report sent on Jan 7, 2005 by the Deputy
Superintendent Police, Dera Bugti Circle to the District Nazim
of the area, the administrative head. Click
to Read the Report in Urdu Page1 | Page2
| Page3 | Page4
| Page5
His report detailed all the attempts made by the Police to contact
the victim before she was abducted to Karachi, although Police
had categorically warned the PPL management that she should not
be moved unless she recorded her statement.
The
report began with the statement that Dr Shazia had been gang raped
and gave specific and graphical picture of how the Police had
recovered a used condom, bloodied bed sheets and broken hair from
Dr Shazia’s ransacked room where everything including the
telephone handset had been broken and there were signs of a big
struggle.
For three days PPL Manager of the Sui Plant, Pervez Jumula, the
Chief Medical Officer of the Sui Hospital Usman Wara and other
doctors and staff kept claiming that Dr Shazia was unconscious
and could not record her statement. But on the 4th day the Police
was told that she had been transferred to Karachi.
In a shameless letter sent to the District Administration Officer
of Dera Bugti, on Jan 7, 2005, the PPL Sui Manager, Pervez Jumula,
described the rape as an ordinary “theft” at Dr Shazia’s
house in which the thief took away Rs 25,000 and some jewellery
but the way the “thief” handled Dr Shazia was shocking,
though it was obvious that the letter was based on cooked up facts.
Click to View PPL letter
The
PPL letter conceded that "One unknown person broke into the
accommodation of Dr Shazia sometime after midnight and pressed
her throat so severely that she felt like dying. She could not
speak out but resisted the violence and started to shout whereupon
he hit her on the head probably with the telephone lying in her
room. He was also carrying a TT (pistol) with which he hit her
on the head as well. She almost became unconscious. He then enquired
about cash and other valuable items...He then tied her eyes and
face and threw a blanket over her and escaped. She saw nothing..."
In a reply on the same day, the District Police Officer of Dera
Murad Jamali asked the PPL Manager 7 direct questions:
Even if the case was a 'theft', the letter asks, why then the
facts were concealed from the Police for three days; Why PPL management
obstructed the Police from taking the statement of Dr Shazia;
If she was unconscious, why was she removed to Karachi and if
she could go to Karachi why was she not allowed to record her
statement to Police; How will you justify the recovery of blood-stained
bed sheet, semen-stained pillow and a used condom from the crime
scene; Why other witnesses including Lady Doctor Sana, Lady Doctor
Saima, were not produced before the Police. Click
to View Copy of Police Letter
The
Police letter also accused the PPL management of 'abducting' Dr
Shazia and keeping her illegally in the hospital where she was
unconscious at least for 2 days after the rape.
The
PPL management is thunder-struck and looking towards the Pakistan
Army to bail it out as a judicial enquiry has been ordered by
the provincial government under political pressure and these documents
may prove that PPL had abetted and colluded with the criminals
while concealing facts from the Police.
But
while this rape may become a triviality if the expected military
operation is launched in Balochistan, the incident would go down
as the event which triggered the biggest folly of the Musharraf
regime, even leading to its ultimate demise.
The confused Balochistan Government has already asked the Federal
Government to deploy security forces in Sui to restore ‘complete’
writ of law and ensure the safety of the gas plant.
"We have been left with no option but to ask the federal
government to deploy the security forces because police and the
Levies, equipped with small weapons, can not counter the attacks
of the miscreants and terrorists," Baloch Home Minister Nausherwani
told newsmen soon after the meeting of the provincial cabinet.
But
in its latest crisis management strategy, the Musharraf Government
is not calling its activities in Balochistan as an operation,
although the signs are clear what will happen in the next few
days.
Troops
have already launched a house-to-house search for weapons around
the Sui gas field. Hundreds of troops were involved in the operation
focused on villages in the vicinity of the Sui gas field to flush
out weapons and secure the facility, AFP reported on Friday night.
