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Dr. Shazia Khalid


Shazia Khalid (Sindhi: شازيه خالد‎) (Urdu: شازیه خالد ‎) (born 1973) is a medical doctor and advocate of women's human rights from Sui, Sui, Pakistan.

Dr. Shazia Khalid is married to Khalid Aman, a pipeline engineer. In 2005 Dr. Shazia was an employee of Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL), and working at the company's Sui hospital for the past 18 months while living alone in accommodation provided by PPL. Security services for the entire facility was provided by the Defence Services Group (DSG). She had taken the job only after PPL had also promised a job for her husband. The job, however, never materialised.

On the night of 2 January and in the early morning hours of 3 January 2005, Dr. Shazia was awoken by somebody pulling her hair. She was then strangled with a cord, threatened, blindfolded, pistol-whipped, beaten and repeatedly raped by a masked intruder, allegedly an army officer, at Sui, Dera Bugti, in the heavily guarded government-owned natural gas plant. She was severely injured in the attack but managed to cut her hands free of the cord and sought help from a nurse, Sakina, at the nearby nursing hostel. Sakina then informed the administration of PPL and the DCMO; the medical staff on duty, Dr Mohammad Ali, Dr Irshad, Dr Saima Siddiqui, nurse Firdous and Salimullah visited Dr. Shazia. Her pleas to contact her husband (who was working in Libya at the time) and her family were ignored. Instead of treating her medically, officials were said to have drugged her into unconsciousness with sedatives for three days to keep her quiet and then transferred her to a psychiatric hospital, Asghar Psychiatric Hospital, in Karachi.

Her husband, Khalid, in Libya at the time, rushed back to Pakistan to be reunited with his wife. With his support and despite Pakistan's notorious much criticised and objected rape laws, Shazia reported the crime.

Following the report, for a period of 2 months, she was put under house arrest in a house in Karachi under the "unofficial protection" of the police, army and Musharraf officials and was not allowed access to doctors, lawyers or visitors of her choice. In addition, the crime scene and anything that could be considered as evidence, including the clothes of Dr. Shazia, were tampered with or destroyed. When her family was informed some days later, Dr. Shazia and her family were told to keep quiet and dissuaded to register the rape case or speak to the media by the PPL Company representatives, who denied the rape to the media.


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