Agence France Presse

Islamabad, March 18:

Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has ordered the arrest of four men involved in a gang-rape case after an appeal by their alleged victim, officials said today. The four were freed from jail on Tuesday despite a decision by the country’s top court to reconsider their acquittal on charges of assaulting Mukhtiar Mai, 33, who has become a rights campaigner since the attack. “The PM ordered the arrest of the accused on my application and they have been re-arrested,” Mai told AFP after meeting Aziz in the capital Islamabad. “I am happy over the decision.” Officials said the four had been arrested and that an order banning them from leaving the country had already been issued yesterday.

“They have been detained under maintenance of public order laws on the request of Mukhtiar Mai that her life was in danger if the accused were allowed to move freely,” said Kashmala Tariq, chairperson of Pakistan’s parliamentary commission for human rights. “They have been detained for a period of three months,” added Ahsan Mahboob, police chief of Muzaffragarh city, which is near the village of Meerwala where both the victim and the alleged rapists are from.

Mai was raped for more than an hour on the orders of a tribal council at Meerwala in June 2002 as punishment for her brother’s alleged affair with a woman of a powerful rival clan. Six men were sentenced to death in August 2002 for the assault. But five of them were acquitted on appeal to Lahore High Court earlier this month, while the sixth had his punishment commuted to a life sentence. The decision shocked the country and sparked international outrage. The Supreme Court has suspended the acquittals pending a new hearing at a date to be set. However, four of the five were released from jail despite the court’s decision to look afresh at the case. The men had returned to Meerwala while the SC waits to fix the date for the hearing. Mai also appealed to President Musharraf to have the men sent back to prison.