ISLAMABAD, 19 March 2005 — Pakistani police yesterday rearrested four men who were convicted of raping a woman on orders of a village council, hours after the victim asked Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to intervene.
On Thursday, Mukhtaran Mai, the victim of the 2002 rape said she feared for her life after the release of the men on Tuesday pending a Supreme Court appeals hearing.
“We have detained them on the orders of the government we have just received today,” said Ehsan Mehboob, police chief of central town of Muzaffargarh.
Mai said the prime minister had promised to help her in her bid for justice and she felt encouraged.
“I am satisfied that at least now I can go home, although I still fear danger from them,” she said, referring to the powerful Mastoi tribe to which the convicts belong.
About a dozen police officers have been assigned to protect Mai in her home village of Meerwali, where the rape took place and where she now runs a school.
The crime provoked an outcry in Pakistan and focused international attention on the treatment of women in the country, particularly in rural areas, where sometimes brutal tribal customs hold sway.
Mai was gang-raped on the orders of a traditional village council after her brother, who was 12 at the time, was judged to have offended the honor of the Mastois by befriending a girl from their clan.
An anti-terrorism court sentenced six men to death in July 2002 for the attack — four for carrying out the rape and two who sat on the village council.
But this month the case became snarled in a legal tangle after a provincial high court overturned the ruling and acquitted five of the six, citing a lack of evidence, and commuted the sentence of the sixth to life in prison. Last Friday, the Federal Shariat Court, Pakistan’s highest Islamic tribunal, rejected the Multan court’s judgment, saying it had no jurisdiction to rule on the case.
The Supreme Court then intervened, suspending proceedings of both the Federal Shariat Court and Multan High Court and said it would hear appeals and counter-appeals against the rulings.
One of the five acquitted has remained in jail throughout in connection with another case. The Supreme Court is expected to start proceedings in the next few days, although a date has not yet been announced.
Gang rapes and honor killings are common in feudalistic rural Pakistan. In most cases the perpetrators go free because of incompetent police investigations and flaws in the legal system, which have been highlighted in the current case.
Mai told The Associated Press on Thursday that she has recently received threats from her attackers.
