THATTA, Sept 19: French research scholar Ms Florence alias Farida Boryak, whose entire belongings including the her hard-earned research notes were stolen at the shrine of Abdullah Shah Ashabi in Makli late on Monday, has refused to leave Thatta.

Talking to Dawn here in the presence of Thatta DPO Rustam Khan Jatoi, her guide Wazir Qureshi and the Makli SHO at the DPO’s office in response to ‘official requests’ to shift to Karachi, she contended that without recovery of her priceless research papers, she will not proceed anywhere and continue to protest.

“I shall lodge an FIR against the district police if my research papers on “Buddhism in China and India and Sufism in Pakistan” which I have compiled after tireless efforts investing my potential, skill and finance for a couple of years in the region are not recovered” she said.

Elaborating her academic love towards the subject and source of inspiration, the French scholar said that in 1991 she was affiliated with Elahiat Faculty of a university in Konya (Turkey) and initiated work on comparative study of religions. Later, in a bid to explore facts about Buddhism and Sufism, Ms Florence said, she travelled to Holland, England, Turkey, India and Pakistan for an in-depth study of the subject.

Being a freelancer, she got in touch with the Taxila Institute of Arts and Civilisation and the academy founded by noted archaeologist Professor Ahmed Hassan Dani affiliated with Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad.

“My research papers included detailed biographies of the Sufis of Sindh and information about the shrines of Sufis in Sindh, for which I have spent six precious months shuttling from one place to another. You cannot assess the worth pf my work Mr DPO”, the charged scholar, attired in Shalwar Kameez, said pointing to the bewildered DPO.

Her guide Wazir Qureshi, a young man running a tuition centre in Thatta, told the DPO that since the robbery and as a gesture of goodwill, he had made her stay at his home but some intelligence agency sleuths were threatening him of dire consequences. The DPO assured him of protection.