QUETTA, Feb 24: Hundreds of tribal women staged a rally in Dera Bugti on Thursday in protest against the government's failure to arrest the main accused involved in the lady doctor's criminal assault case.

It is for the first time in the history of Balochistan that tribal women held a protest march. The women, wearing traditional dress, marched on the roads of Dera Bugti carrying placards and banners inscribed with slogans expressing solidarity with the lady doctor.

They chanted slogans against the government and in favour of the victim. The business community and traders of Dera Bugti closed their shops and business establishments during the rally.

The protesting tribal women, marching round the township, gathered in front of Dera Bugti Press Club where the representatives of Women Action Committee addressed them.

They strongly condemned the criminal assault onthe lady doctor and criticized the government for not arresting the main accused iinvolved in the heinous crime They alleged that earlier the Pakistan Petroleum Limited administration was involved in hiding the facts about the assault but now the government had also joined hands with the PPL in this regard.

"The rulers are defaming a national institution just to save one officer who is involved in the rape case," the representatives of the tribal women said. The Baloch women, they stressed, would not tolerate such crimes against women on the soil of Balochistan.

They called for the arrest of Captain Hammad of the Defence Security Guards for meeting the demands of justice. They also appealed to national and international women and human rights organizations to forcefully take up the lady doctor's assault case and put pressure on the government which was, as they put it, "forcing the victim and her husband to withdraw the case and leave the country".