DERA GHAZI KHAN: The foreigner complainant of rape by her tour host is in trauma. She says she is in utter shock after the horrible act.

Talking to Dawn, the female vlogger, allegedly raped by her tour guide, said on Wednesday she felt deeply disturbed by the fact that a friend she knew and trusted him for a long time betrayed her.

“He raped me who is portraying the positive image of this beautiful country to foreign travellers,” she sobbed.

“I’m not sure if I can ever recover from mental scars. I hope that there will be justice for me in the case.”

The woman was allegedly raped by her “guide” at the tribal area tourist resort, Fort Munro, in Dera Ghazi Khan district on July 16 where she was on a trip. Acting on her complaint, the Border Military Police arrested the prime suspect, ‘M’ (21), also said to be an American citizen.

The suspect, who is a software engineer and works as an online tourist guide, and the complainant woman were brought to the teaching hospital of the Ghazi Medical College for medical examination. Hospital sources confirmed that the woman was raped.

The suspect told Dawn that he and the vlogger exchanged love threads in Uch Sharif and established a love bond. Later, she also shared her private time with another local social media activist (who had already been acquaintances with her) on July 16.

“I recorded their intimate moments and sent the footage to her fiance, Basil Khan,” he claimed.

Basil, when contacted, denied the statement of the suspect. He said that they met the suspect on December 27 in Karachi for the arrangement of tours of the complainant as she is very fond of travelling. She visited Rajanpur and Dera Ghazi Khan twice under the guidance of the suspect as he had won our trust. She used to live with the family of the guide at his home in Rajanpur.

He said that he received an SOS message from his fiance late on July 16 that she was sexually assaulted in Fort Munro. She tried to escape early in the morning from the hotel but failed. Later, she made an excuse to the suspect that she had to submit an assignment with her university in the US, to which the suspect brought her to Dera Ghazi Khan to send her to Lahore.

Basil maintained that she shared the detail of her ordeal with him in the Chinese language to conceal the conversation from fellow travellers while travelling to Lahore.

Published in Dawn, July 21st, 2022