PAKISTAN: Pakistani police yesterday rearrested four men convicted in a notorious gang-rape, 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 appeal.
"We have detained them on the orders of the government we have just received today," said Ehsan Mehboob, police chief of the central town of Muzaffargarh.
Ms 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 Ms 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. Ms 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 honour 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 a provincial high court overturned the ruling and acquitted five of the six.