The national disaster control authority AFAD resumed the search for the student Gülistan Doku in the Uzunçayır reservoir in Dersim on Thursday. In addition to personnel from the Water Rescue Service, teams from the Turkish Navy, the Police Headquarters and the Department for Special Operations of the Gendarmerie are participating in the operation, which is coordinated by the Provincial Governor's Office. A total of 45 rescue teams search the reservoir in rubber dinghies and in foot groups. This is already the third search operation for Doku in Uzunçayır.

The 21-year-old childhood education science student Gülistan Doku, born in Amed (Diyarbakir), has been missing since January 5. Fears were quickly expressed that she might have been the victim of a violent crime. Just one day before Doku's disappearance, her ex-boyfriend Zainal A. had tried to drag the young woman into his car by force. Doku fought back and passers-by who observed the event informed the police. However, the police ruled out the man, whose stepfather - now suspended - is a police officer in Dersim, as a suspect relatively early on. But the authorities have no leads either, although almost every area in Dersim is monitored 24 hours a day with surveillance cameras and directional microphones. Instead, the police suspect that the student has committed suicide.

Doku was captured by a car camera on the day she disappeared on the dam bridge. The analysis of her cell phone data location also revealed that the last registered location was the bridge. Although an independent evaluation of the video recordings of the vehicle as well as measurements of the water movements at that time have meanwhile shown that a possible suicide or fall into the reservoir on that day can be excluded, the search is again concentrated on the Uzunçayır.

In early September, a sit-in initiated by relatives of the missing student in Dersim for the resumption of search operations was violently broken up by the police. In the process, Doku's mother Bedriye and her sister Aygül were dragged from the square and temporarily taken into custody. The authorities justified the arrests with a ban on activity issued by the governor's office for the entire province. Ali Çimen, the lawyer for the Doku family, spoke of arbitrary justice. In the meantime, the judicial authorities have also set their sights on the lawyer. The Chief Public Prosecutor's Office in Dersim accuses Çimen of disclosing the results of investigations that are to be treated confidentially and has initiated a corresponding investigation. The attorney has been made guilty of publishing the content of the independent expert opinion on the car camera footage. Çimen faces up to three years in prison if convicted on charges of "violation of the confidentiality of investigations”.