15 January 2005	Saturday	04 Zilhaj 1425

ISLAMABAD, Jan 14: Balochistan National Party (BNP) has asked the government to register an FIR against the five army personnel, who had allegedly assaulted a lady doctor in Sui.

Speaking at a press conference at the Rawalpindi Press Club's camp office here on Friday, MNA Abdurrauf Mengal of BNP alleged that the government was hiding the facts about the alleged gang rape of the lady doctor and was not registering the FIR against the accused.

He alleged that on the night between January 1 and 2, an army officer phoned the doctor and asked her to come and attend a patient but when she came, the officer and four other constables, assaulted her and kept her unconscious for two days.

Later, Mr Mengal said, the lady doctor was taken to Karachi through chartered flight after realizing that her condition was further deteriorating. "Since then, the parents of the lady doctor have not seen their daughter.

They are begging the authorities to hand them over her body if she is not alive, but the authorities are tight-lipped and the parents are undergoing mental torture", he added.

The government, he said, wanted to hush up the matter because armymen were involved in the incident. However, the people of Balochistan would never calm down without seeing the five armymen being brought to justice.

He said when the people of the nearby areas were informed about the incident, they started agitation and on January 13, Balochistan bar also boycotted the courts.

The people, he said, started demonstrations to pressure the government to provide justice to the lady doctor, and the forces personnel started spraying bullets at them and mercilessly 'martyred' eight innocent citizen, injured 12 others while took away to undisclosed locations dozens of others.

"Musharraf says it is not 1971. Yes, it is not! That's why, we would never allow army to commit crimes and that too against women, who are considered the most respected creatures on earth in Balochistan.

The government should look back to its history of operations in Balochistan which is witness to the fact that Balochis could not be suppressed and could never be calmed down by state terrorism unless they were given their rights", Mr Mengal said.