Protests in PoK against rape of quake victim

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December 10, 2005 19:19 IST

Political groups in Pakistan occupied Kashmir held a demonstration in the quake-ravaged capital of Muzaffarbad to protest against the alleged rape of a quake victim in a Lahore hospital.

The groups took out a procession yesterday to protest the alleged rape of a 20 year-old girl from Muzaffarabad by a doctor of the Mayo hospital in Lahore on December 4.

The demonstrators, who raised slogans against the accused and demanded that earthquake victims be shifted from Pakistani cities to the PoK area, were stopped by police from entering the main market in Muzaffarabad, local daily Dawn reported.

"We are people of integrity. The quake has deprived us of our worldly belongings, but not of our sense of honour," said Khawaja Saifuddin, a leader of the pro-independence Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, which organised the demonstration.

"Nobody should underestimate us. Inaction by the authorities will leave us with no option but to launch an agitation from one end of Kashmir to the other," he said.

Another JKLF leader, Sajid Siddiqui, urged the earthquake survivors not to make any compromises.
"Live without food if you don't find any. Eat grass, but protect your honour," he said alleging that four Kashmiri girls had been abducted from the old campus camp in Muzaffarabad within a week after the quake and called upon President Pervez Musharraf to ensure their immediate recovery.

JKLF leader Bashir Ahmed Lone strongly criticized some federal ministers for "patronising elements involved in criminal activities" in PoK.

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