The Hindu : Death for six for gangrape in Pak.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 01, 2002

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Death for six for gangrape in Pak.

DERA GHAZI KHAN (Pakistan) Aug. 31. A Pakistani anti-terrorism court today sentenced six men to death for the gangrape of a woman in the Punjab province, a crime that shocked Pakistan and highlighted abuses against women in rural areas. Eight men were acquitted.

The victim of the June 22 crime, Mukhtar Mai, 30, was not present when the court announced the verdict amid heavy security.

She said on Friday that members of her family had been threatened with death if the men were convicted.

A court sitting behind closed doors in the town of Dera Ghazi Khan tried four men for rape and the 10 who sat on the village jury for authorising the alleged crime.

The single judge has been deliberating on the case for a week.

Mai said she went to the village jury after her 12-year-old brother, Abdul Shakoor, was kidnapped and sodomised by members of the rival Mastoi family as a "punishment" for having an illicit affair with one of their relatives.

The jury ruled that to save Mastoi honour, Shakoor should marry the woman with whom he was linked, while Mai, who is divorced, was to be given away in marriage to a Mastoi man. The prosecution said that when she rejected the decision, she was gangraped by four Mastoi men and made to walk home semi-naked in front of hundreds of people.

Armed police units were stationed around the town today as hundreds of members of both the families and their supporters gathered in anticipation of the verdict.

The Government has set up a temporary police post to protect Mai's family but this has done little to ease fears of revenge.

She appealed yesterday for the Government to find her a safer place to live. — Reuters

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