Tag Archives: acquitted

Going back to Mukhtar Mai

by Sana Saleem

I am at a loss of words today. No words can describe the dejection, pain and anguish that many of us felt on hearing the Supreme Court’s verdict on Mukhtar Mai’s case. After nine arduous years of waiting for justice, five out of six accused in Mai’s rape have been acquitted. It was the Supreme Court that took suo moto notice on the LHC’s decision and now its decision to uphold the initial verdict is extremely disappointing to say the least. …

Read more : DAWN

Mukhtaran Mai: Pakistan betrayed you once again

By Raza Rumi

April 21, 2011 will be remembered as a black day in Pakistan’s history. Not because this was the day when the Supreme Court acquitted the alleged rapists of a poor, marginalised woman. It will be marked as the day when, once again, Pakistan’s colonial criminal justice system failed to protect the vulnerable, thereby rendering a heinous crime such as gang rape almost unpunishable.

Nine years ago, a misogynistic panchayat of south Punjab ordered the gang rape of a woman for no sin of hers. It was her (then 12-year-old) brother who was sodomised and then accused of illicit relations with the sister of the powerful rapists. This low-caste family had to be ‘fixed’. Thanks to the media frenzy, the state had to act when what happens in subaltern Pakistan was exposed. Suo motu notices by the courts, police investigation and faulty prosecution ultimately led to no justice. At every step of the legal process, powerful men obstructed the cause of justice. …

Read more : The Express Tribune