QUETTA, March 18: An uneasy calm prevailed in Dera Bugti and other parts of the tribal area on Friday following Thursday’s fierce clashes between Frontier Corps and Bugti tribesmen that left scores of people dead and many more injured. Though the fighting has ended, there was tension in Dera Bugti as people mourned the dead and all bazaars and government offices in the township remained closed. The personnel of Frontier Corps and armed Bugti tribesmen were observing a ceasefire agreement reached on Thursday night. However, the combatants have not vacated their positions and were menacingly facing each other, reports reaching here from Dera Bugti said. “No firing incident took place in the area of Dera Bugti today,” official sources said.

Meanwhile, the death toll of Frontier Corps personnel has risen to eight as three more seriously injured soldiers succumbed to injuries on Friday.

FC spokesman Col Rizwan Malik said that 23 FC men had been injured in the nine hours of fighting. The death toll of tribesmen also rose as a number of injured people died while they were being taken to hospitals.

A large number of injured people were admitted to hospitals in Quetta, Rahim Yar Khan and Multan.

“Around 60 tribesmen, including women and children, were killed in the FC attack,” Senator Amanullah Kanrani claimed while speaking at a press conference on Friday. He said that Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti’s secretary suffered serious injuries when a rocket exploded in the fort of Nawab Bugti. The medical superintendent of Dera Bugti district hospital, Dr Mohammad Hussain Masoori Bugti, was killed in the attack, he said.

Senator Kanrani also said that one Bugti tribesman was killed and five others were injured when FC personnel opened fire on protesters in Sui. He alleged that the FC was not handing over the body.

FC sources confirmed the incident of firing in Sui but said that tribesmen had fired shots on an FC convoy and pelted it with stones.

The FC spokesman said that a soldier of the Defence Security Guard was injured in the firing. He confirmed that tribesmen had been injured in the firing.

According to sources, most of the deaths took place in the Hindu Mohallah adjacent to

Sui assault victim flies to UK

outgoing plane today.’

“Although we had some special instructions regarding her, she did not come here,” the immigration official said and added: “She might have travelled under some other name.”

However, informed sources told Dawnthat Dr Shazia Khalid and her husband had boarded a flight for London and her eventual destination might be Canada.

Talking to the Online news agency before her departure, she said with tears in her eyes she had gone through the ordeal of narrating the story so many times that she did not want to repeat the gory details.

She said she did not know who had raped her because she had not seen the man. She said she wanted to forget what had happened and start a new life abroad with her husband.

She said she had been working at the Sui hospital for 18 months as assistant lady medical officer and had found the environment friendly and comfortable. She enjoyed working at the hospital, until the midnight of Jan 2 and 3 when the incident took place.

Being a Sunday no other doctor was on duty and she was on call and went to the hospital at around 7.30pm for rounds and returned to her room in the hostel at 8pm.

“I locked the door of my house and also closed the windows and had dinner, prayed and went to sleep at 10pm. I was alone in the house and the next room was vacant, with its door closed,” she said. She said while she was asleep she felt someone was pulling her up with her hair. At first she thought she was dreaming but then she felt someone was tugging her hair.

“First I could not understand what was happening to me. The man told me to be quiet and threatened that if I made any noise he would kill me.” Then, she said, the man raped her till the morning call of prayers when he left.

She said she had been blindfolded with the dupatta and her hands were tied. A pair of small scissors was lying on the dressing table and she struggled to get to it to untie her hands.

She went outside and opened the lock of the gate and went to the nursing hostel. Nurse Sakina kept her in her room and informed the hospital staff, MO Dr Mohammad and PPL chief executive Pervez Jambola. She was given first aid.

“I told the hospital staff to inform my family and ask them to come and get me,” Dr Shazia said.

Two days after the incident she was flown to Karachi from Kandh Kot by a chartered flight.

“I was kept in a mental institution in Karachi and I kept asking then to inform my family but no-one listened to me.

“My husband, through an anonymous email on Jan 8 or 9, found out what had happened to me and he arrived in Karachi on January 11 from Libya.”

Dr Shazia said: “I do not know who Captain Hammad is and I have never heard his name before the incident, nor did I know his family.”

“I cannot recognize the man who raped me but I can identify his voice.”

She said that during the identification parade, 10 to 11 people, including Captain Hammad, were brought in front of her but she could not recognize their voices or identify them.

She expressed her gratitude to the government and said that it was using all possible resources to find the rapist, for which she was grateful. She, however, regretted that some people were politicizing her ordeal and appealed to them to refrain from further tormenting her by “throwing dirt at her honour.” She also appealed to Nawab Akbar Bugti not to ‘make things worse’.

She said her ordeal should be treated as a criminal case and not as a political issue.