Adil Najam
This is a sad and difficult post to write.
Today, the Supreme Court of Pakistan gave its verdict on Mukhtar (Mukhtaran) Mai’s appeal against an earlier verdict by the Lahore High Court (LHC).
The three-judge bench decided to uphold the LHC verdict. This means that the earlier decision will hold; of the six accused of Mukhtaran Mai’s gang rape, five are acquitted and a sixth will complete the life imprisonment that had already been awarded to him.
The exact wording and precise details of the judgment are not yet available, but here are the details as of now, as reported in Dawn:
ISLAMABAD: Upholding the Lahore High Court’s verdict, the Supreme Court’s three-judge bench acquitted five out of six suspects in the Mukhtaran Mai case on Thursday, DawnNews reported. However, the sixth suspect, Abdul Khalique will complete his life imprisonment sentence, the court stated in its verdict.
Speaking to journalists outside the Supreme Court, Mukhtaran Mai voiced a lack of confidence on the verdict and said that she that had lost faith in the judicial system. Human Rights organizations also condemned the release of the suspects in the Mukhtaran Mai case. When asked about a review of the Supreme Court’s verdict, Mukhtaran Mai said she would take a decision on the matter after conferring with her lawyers.
Mukhtaran Mai was represented by public prosecutor, Advocate Atizaz Hassan.
In the Mukhtaran Mai case, Police submitted a challan against 14 suspects in the Anti-Terrorism Court in July 2002. The court declared the death sentence to six suspects and released the other eight. After the verdict of the Anti-Terrorism Court was handed out, five suspects were released by the Lahore High Court’s Multan bench. Whereas, one suspect’s death sentence was changed to life imprisonment.
“I did not receive justice today, hence I have left my fate in the hands of God,” Mukhtaran Mai said while speaking to journalists from her house later. “The release of the suspects has put my life in grave danger,” she added.
We have written before about our respect for Mukhtar Mai, and how I have admired the grace and dignity under adversity that she has come to embody (here, here and here). I have detailed my own encounter with her and recounted how I saw this grace and dignity in practice. My view of her as a person and my dejection – certainly sadness, and even anger – at the decision of the three-judge bench cannot, therefore, be a surprise to anyone.
The verdict is not just a blow for Mukhtaran Mai (and the release of the accused could heighten the treats against her life) but it can and will be seen as another limp response to rape as a crime, a reflection of societal chauvinism, and a blow to womens’ rights in the country. Most importantly, the practical manifestation of the decision will be to deny closure to and to bring back into painful scrutiny the life of a woman who has already been through so much – too much – pain.
For all these reasons I am sad and angry at the decision. Of course, I realize that courts are meant to make decisions on the evidence available and the laws as stated (in principle, the system of justice works only if the idea that everyone – even the patently guilty – is innocent until proven guilty) and also that to accept the principle of an independent judiciary is also to accept the fact that the judiciary will sometimes make decisions that we will not like or agree with. Since I was not privy to the proceedings or to the details of the judgment from the three-judge bench, I do not know the legal minutia on which the judges made their decision. But, this is what I do know: I know that the social and political shadows of this decision will be deep and long – certainly for Mukhtaran Mai herself, but for all women, and for all of society in Pakistan.
For all these reasons, I believe that the next step has to be to go back to the courts. I hope that Mukhtaran Mai will not allow the case to die just yet. My understanding is that the three bench decision can still be appealed once before the full bench of the Supreme Court. I hope that Mukhtar and her legal team will do so.
I realize the emotional cost of such a decision on Mukhtaran, especially given just how long this case dragged in the Supreme Court the first time around. But I also know the importance of doing so, if only for advancing the judicial discourse on this important issue.
What happened to Mukhtaran Mai cannot be reversed, nor will society’s imbeded prejudices be over-turned by any one decision. But for those of us who believe that societal sanction for violence against women has to be over-turned, the battle for justice must go on; no matter how disheartened, sad or angry we may be at any one decision on any one day.
On the Twitter account in Mukhtar Mai’s name, a recent message read: “No court can weaken my resolve to stand against injustice.” I cannot agree with that sentiment more.
This is a balanced article as usual. Just like with every other issue, people are reacting to this one way or other either calling Mai names or the SC names. The fact is this is a process and you have to push courts through cases, not through protests. The issue was never Mai herself, it was changing the national discourse on rape. That is happening and we must keep pushing it through courts, through media and through everything else.
@Copper
“They convicted one person for gang rape and still found a way to relief him via life sentence instead of hanging him.”
The only person, Abdul Khaliq, was sentenced only due to his naive straightforwardness as he admitted that he had a sexual intercourse with Mai, but only treating her as a wife as he had been ‘nikahfied’ with her earlier. But Mai rejected the honor of a wife and denied having been married with him. Otherwise there being no evidence of raping Mai against him either he would have been acquitted like others.
Here it may be mentioned here that the LHC had also passed strong stricture against the trial court judge who had sentenced 6 persons to death without any evidence. What has become of that stricture is not clear.
Another woman, nobody ever cared for, was the one raped by the brother of Mukhtar Mai. Never was she a point of attention of any NGO or Adil Najam or any ATP commenter. Only because her rape story was not “charming, sell-able, dollar-generating or even filmi”.
Keeping my own contempt for rapists aside (while expecting maximum possible punishment for such perverts), I can not help but laugh at those commenters demanding capital punishment for the rapists. The same commenters, on other occasions, have gone extraaaaaa miles to detest the very existence of capital punishment in the law. Generally these occasions are those where a member (or a dear one) of secular elite is put to trial. And now they want the same law to be applied which they have constantly been protesting.
Such hypocrites……
On his visit to USA, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was criticizingly questioned about the punishments given in his state under Shariah. The monarch replied: “Compare the crime rate of the whole of Saudi Arabia with one New York City, You will find the answer!!!”
We see such cases in our society today because we do not follow the life and sayings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) who vowed to cut the hand of his own daughter Fatima (RATA) if found guilty of stealing.
Also because we do not elect leaders or head of state like Umar (RATA) who, during his reign as Caliph, ordered his own son (a hafiz-e-Quran) to be flogged 100 times for drinking wine. When the son died after 80 flogs, remaining 20 were ordered to be struck on his dead body. Only with this kind of justice, he could claim responsibility for a dog’s death by hunger at the banks of Euphrates (thousands of miles away from his seat of government).
My point of view is that rape and other evils of society are the outcomes of making and keeping common muslim ignorant of the real message of Quran. This is a topic for separate discussion; perhaps some other time.
Mukhtar Mai is not an angel. She, however, does have a right to appeal and we need to wait for the detailed verdict.
This is the worst article from you Najam which I never expected. You seem so sure of Mai’s rape as though you have licked it on the spot.
She is out and out a media fraud of the century and nothing else. My first reaction on the decision given elsewhere is reproduced hereunder:
“کھٹیا پہاڑ تے نکلا چوہا – سپریم کورٹ نے بالاخر 6 سال کے طویل غور و غو ض کے بعد مائی کے جبر زنا کیس کا فیصلہ صادر فرما دیا اور لاھور ہائی کورٹ کا فیصلہ بحال رکھا – سوال یہ اٹھتا ہے کہ اگر یہی کچھ کرنا تھا تو ’پنگاموٹو‘ کاہے کو نازل کیا گیا تھا جس کی وجہ سے درجنوں لوگوں کو 6 سال مفت میں جیل کاٹنی پڑی – اسکا حساب کون دیگا