Supreme Court to hear Mukhtar Mai’s appeal against the acquittal of her rapists on Wednesday

Photo: AFP

The Supreme Court approved for hearing on Saturday Mukhtar Mai’s appeal against the acquittal of 13 suspects in her gang-rape case eight years after she filed the petition.

Justice Gulzar Ahmed will head a three member bench that will hear Mukhtar Mai’s review appeal on Wednesday (March 6). It was filed in 2011.

The court has also issued a notice to her lawyer, Aitazaz Ahsan. An anti-terrorism court awarded in 2002 the death sentence to six men for raping Mukhtar Mai on the orders of a panchayat.

The Lahore High Court’s Multan bench acquitted five of the suspects in 2005 and sentenced the sixth to life in prison due to lack of evidence.

Related: Supreme Court acquits two men in a murder case after six years

In 2011, the Supreme Court upheld the high court’s decision and rejected her appeal. It took the top court eight long years to approve her subsequent appeal for hearing.

On June 22, 2002, Mukhtar Mai was gang-raped on the orders of the panchayat to seek retribution for an alleged act of adultery committed by her 12-year-old brother. However, she insisted the accusation was false and was only leveled against her brother to prevent the family from registered a case against who sodomised her brother.

She was gang-raped by six men in front of onlookers and made to parade naked on the streets. She said there a total of 14 men involved in the incident. Only six were taken to court.

A local cleric urged her family to report the matter and told a local journalist about it on June 28, 2002, making it the first time the case was mentioned in the media.

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Article source: https://www.samaa.tv/news/2019/03/supreme-court-to-hear-mukhtar-mais-appeal-against-the-acquittal-of-her-rapists-on-wednesday/