DERA GHAZI KHAN, Sept 20: The unlawful
stay of eight foreigners in the district and their brazen-faced
act of escaping with a century-old coffin of a young wife of an
Indian Army Punjab Commission’s captain has become a vexed
question for the local administration and the people.
The coffin of Maud
Evelyn, wife of Captain M.L. Ferrar, has been found missing from
the cemetery in the hill resort of Fort Munro, about 80 kilometres
from here. The cracks visible on the marble grave lends credibility
to the suspicion of the coffin’s theft and official neglect.
Information gleaned
by Dawn reveals that the foreigners stayed for three days at the
Fort Munro cemetery in violation of the ban on stay of any foreigner
in the district. On Sept 15, eight foreigners, including three
women, came to Fort Munro by two jeeps and a motorbike.
Sources said the Punjab
police escorted them at the tribal area border but their information
was not signalled to the Border Military Police as it is done
during the routine movement of foreigners crossing the area for
Balochistan. Ironically, neither the BMP nor the provincial law
enforcers keep record of these ‘suspicious’ foreigners.
Sources alleged that
on their return on the evening of Sept 17, the eight foreigners
were again escorted by the Punjab police as they set foot on the
settled area land. They stayed for thee days in the cemetery having
five graves — two of infants Walter, son of Mr & Mrs
W.C. Oram (born Aug 12, 1910 and died Aug 17 the same year), and
James Fedreick, son of Captain and Mrs J.W.C Hutchinson. The child
was born on Sept 23, 1897 and died on April 26, 1898. It was the
first gave at the cemetery.
Also lay buried were
Horace Alleby Smith, a medical officer, and N.H. Smith, who drowned
in the Dames lake at Fort Munro on Aug 2, 1900 at the age of 30.
The last grave was of Maud Evelyn, the wife of Captain Ferrar.
She died on Oct 13, 1906 (inadvertently published as 1886 in the
preceding story on Aug 20) at the age of 26 while giving birth
to a baby boy at Khar.
That child went on
to become a member of the House of Commons of Britain as sources
told Dawn that at least 20 years ago, a letter was received by
the tribal area political administration from the official who
claimed that her mother had died during his birth at Khar. He
had requested the administration to take special care of the grave
of her mother Maud Evelyn.
The foreigners, sources
said, broke the marble slabs of the grave of the young lady with
the connivance of the employees of civil works who had been deployed
there by the DCO and the PA house.
“Now there are
no remains of the coffin,” a BMP official told Dawn on the
request of anonymity.
It is pertinent to
mention that there are three cemeteries in Dera Ghazi Khan —
one at Fort Munro tribal area and the other two in the settled
area.
The district police
officer denied the report of arrival and stay of any foreigner
in the area during the aforementioned days. Meanwhile, the BMP
commandant has suspended from service the whole staff of the Fort
Munro police station of BMP.
The DCO told newsmen
that the administration had no record of their identity.
He claimed that the
staff of all check posts (BMP, Rangers, Punjab police and Punjab
highway police) which works from Fort Munro to Dera Ghazi Khan
has been suspended.
He confirmed that there
had been a ban on stay of any foreigner in the district since
2001. |