Kharotabad killings: Funeral of two foreign victims held in Quetta

The couple plans on burying their son and his wife’s bodies in Quetta today.

QUETTA:

The funeral of the two foreigners killed by security forces in Kharotabad area of Quetta was held on Sunday.

The bodies of Olga, a Russian national, and her Tajik husband Nauman were buried at Jabar Noorul Quran graveyard in Quetta. Nauman’s father attended the funeral prayers.

Olga was seven months pregnant when she was shot down by the security forces.

Earlier, the authorities handed over the bodies to the relatives of the couple and sought permission from them for their burial.

The other three foreigners killed in the incident have not been identified as yet and their bodies are still being kept at the Bolan Medical Complex. Two Russian diplomats arrived in the country for the identification but the bodies were too decayed to be recognized.

Updated from print edition (below)

Kharotabad killings: Two foreign victims identified by Tajik parents

The Identities of two of the five foreigners, who were gunned down by Frontier Corps and police personnel in the Kharotabad area on May 17, were determined on Saturday by a couple from Tajikistan who visited the Bolan Medical Complex in Quetta.

A man and his wife, both Tajik nationals, visited the morgue accompanied by a Tajik diplomat and identified two of the foreigners as their son and daughter-in-law. The bodies of the foreigners have been kept in the morgue since the day of the incident.

According to doctors, the couple was the youngest among the victims, aged between 20 to 26 years. The young man was a Tajik national, while his wife, who was seven-months pregnant, was Russian.

The parents refused to talk to the media and declined being photographed.

They wept after seeing bodies of their loved ones and expressed grief at the killing.

They arrived at the Quetta International Airport from Islamabad and after a brief stay in a local hotel visited the hospital to identify the bodies. They intend to bury the bodies in Quetta.

“The parents told us that they would bury the two bodies in Quetta today (Sunday),” sources at the hospital said.





Published in The Express Tribune, June 12th, 2011.