Human rights activists and government officials today criticised Pakistan's tribal justice system as a special court ordered death by hanging of six men for their role in a gang-rape sanctioned by a tribal jury.
"It was a case that shocked the whole country and the world," said Mr Afrasiab Khattak, chairman of the private Human Rights Commisssion of Pakistan (HRCP).
"The accused have been punished but the issue will not be over until the state takes up the larger issue of the role of feudal lords and the treatment of women in society," Mr Khattak told AFP.
In an unusual midnight verdict announced by a special court in the Punjab district of Dera Ghazi Khan, six men accused of involvement in the gang rape of young Pakistani woman were sentenced to death.
Two of them were members of the so called panchayat (jury) while eight others were acquitted.
The 30-year-old woman was gang-raped on the orders of a tribal council in the village of Meerwala 435 kilometres (270 miles) south of the capital Islamabad.
She told the anti-terrorism court, set up in the late 1990s to expedite justice, that she was sexually assaulted for more than an hour by four men on June 22 over the alleged sexual misconduct of her brother with a woman from the powerful local Mastoi tribe.
The attack prompted an outcry from rights groups and sparked separate inquiries by the Supreme Court, HRCP and the Punjab provincial government.
President Pervez Musharraf sent his ministers with cash compensation to the victim and the provincial government suspended several police officers for inaction.
Amnesty International last month urged Pakistan to amend or abolish the tribal justice system in the country.
AFP