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University student Gülistan Doku (21) has been missing in Turkey’s eastern Tunceli (Dersim) province for 300 days.
Her sister Aygül Doku said: “We are in such a bad situation that we want to find the bones of Gulistan. While we could not bear to wake up my 21 year old sister, now we are looking for her bones”.
Gülistan disappeared on 5 January in Tunceli (Dersim). Despite the efforts and insistence of her family and women’s organizations, the search was terminated. Her family and lawyer argue that the investigation into her disappearance has been “incomplete and inaccurate” from the very beginning, so no progress has been made.
No trace was found in the searches made in the Tunceli Uzunçayır dam lake on the report prepared regarding the possibility that Doku committed suicide. Exploration work in the dam was terminated in mid-August.
According to the lawyer of Doku’s family, Ali Çimen, the ongoing investigation has been partly “incomplete and not widely” based so far. Camera footage that is available shows a conversation between Gülistan Doku and chief suspect Zeynal Abarakov on 5 January 2020, the day she went missing. The expert report underlines that the conversation between Doku and Zaynal Abarakov, the only suspect, was “not like an ordinary conversation between a man and a woman who have just come across each other in the street”. The lawyer of Doku’s family, Ali Çimen, says: “He must be arrested immediately”.
However, no action was taken against the suspect Zeynal Abarakov and his stepfather who is a policeman. Çimen said: ”If the suspect is not protected by some people, Abarakov has to be immediately arrested. Because both the expert report and the reports that we requested from the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) suggest strong criminal suspicion on the part of Zeynal Abarakov. He must be arrested”.
An investigation was launched against the family’s lawyer Ali Çimen for his statements and the Doku family who started a sit-in action regarding the disappearance of Gülistan Doku.
