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| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistan Gang-rape Suspect Arrested |
| 2002-07-06 |
| A suspect in the gang rape of an 18-year-old girl as part of a tribal punishment was arrested Saturday after surrendering to a local newspaper. Faiz Bakhsh Mastoi was the second man arrested in connection with the June 22 rape in the past two days. Police are searching for two other suspects. Bakhsh Mastoi went to the office of a local newspaper in Multan, a regional center in Punjab province, and identified himself as one of those wanted in the case. "I'm surrendering at the newspaper office because I'm afraid that police may kill me in a fake encounter," Bakhsh Mastoi told reporters. Police have been under pressure to capture the rapists after Pakistan's Supreme Court accused local officers of negligence for failing to arrest them immediately after the crime. "Arrest them? Whatever for? It was only some girl. What's she worth?" Police said the woman was raped by four men after a tribal council in Meerwala village ordered that her family be punished after her 11-year-old brother was seen walking unchaperoned with a girl from a different Horrors! Police say the tribal verdict was illegal. But Pakistan has a tradition of "I touched their feet. I wept. I cried. I said I taught the holy Quran to children in the village, therefore don't punish me for a crime which was not committed by me. But they tore my clothes and raped me one by one." Her brother brought shame on somebody or other, y'see. So it was necessary to gang rape his sister, and that way the tribe, the area, and the entire country could be presented to the world as just oozing honor and dignity. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |