ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top court on Thursday rejected the long-awaited review of an order acquitting the men who gang-raped Mukhtaran Mai on the orders of a village council in June 2002.
Mai was allegedly attacked to settle a matter of village honor, as decided by a panchayat, or local council. She was then paraded naked through her village. She brought a case against 14 of her attackers.
In August 2002, an anti-terrorism court sentenced six of Mai’s attackers to death and released the remaining eight. Three years later, the Lahore High Court acquitted five of the six convicts and reduced the sentence of the sixth to life imprisonment, citing lack of evidence.
Mai appealed the verdict in the Supreme Court which upheld the Lahore court’s decision in 2011. She then filed a review against the Supreme Court’s order which the court threw out on Thursday on what it said were technical grounds.
“Only a mistake [or mistakes] in a ruling can be highlighted [for reconsideration] in a review petition,” the local Dawn newspaper said, quoting Justice Gulzar Ahmed as saying in the courtroom. However, he added that the points made in Mai’s application could be used to file a separate case.
The 2011 ruling by Pakistan’s Supreme Court meant all but one of the 14 men charged with attacking Mai in 2002 have walked free.
Mai says she was attacked as a punishment because her brother — who was 12 at the time — was judged to have offended the honor of a powerful clan by allegedly having an affair with one of its women.
Pakistani women rarely speak out after violent assault or rape, fearing the shame it will bring on them and their families. Mai’s decision to speak out has earned her widespread recognition.
Mai started the Mukhtar Mai Women’s Welfare Organization to help support and educate Pakistani women and girls with money she received from the government and from donations.