On 13th June Dawn released WikiLeaks cables from the US Embassy in Islamabad in 2006 in which US Ambassador Ryan Crocker raising Suspicions of Mukhtaran Mai involvement in panchayat rulings against local girls
WIKILEAK CABLE: Mukhtaran’s brother Hazoor Bakhsh convened a panchayat (traditional court) to review the case of a nine-year old girl xxx who had been raped by three local individuals. According to civil society activists, Mai had urged her brother to deal with the case through a panchayat rather than the formal legal system, arguing that the courts would not properly deal with the rapists. At the panchayat, Bakhsh utilized his position and authority to order that the fifteen year old sister of one of the rapists, Faizan, be handed over in marriage to rape victim’s xxx father, Rasool Bakhsh, as compensation. Rasool tortured Faizan who was rescued by her father and brother one day after her marriage.
Civil society groups claimed that during the same panchayat, Hazoor Bakhsh, issued an order acquiting five people from a neighboring village of the kidnap and rape of two sisters xxx. Sources claim that despite promising the sister’s justice at the panchayat, Hazoor Bakhsh took a Rs. 60,000 (approximately $1000) bribe for their acquittal and ruled against the sisters — effectively finding them guilty of illicit sexual relations.
It seems that there are TWO Hazoor Bakhsh’s in the area one belongs to the Kharos tribe and is better known as Hazoor Bakhsh Kharos while Mukhtara Mai and her brother belong to the Gujjar tribe and her brother should best be recognzied as Hazoor Bakhsh Gujjar.
I’d like everyone to read the email circulated by Mukhtar Mai Women Welfare Organization which would clarify all confusions …..
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