Pakistan court orders amputation of convicts

Pakistan court orders amputation of convicts Islamabad, Dec 22 : An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan's eastern province of Punjab has ordered the amputation of a suitor and his cousin for chopping off the nose and ears of a teenage girl who rejected his proposal, media reports said on Tuesday.

Interpreting the Islamic punishment of "an eye for an eye", judge Khalid Naveed Dar ruled in the provincial capital Lahore Monday that noses and ears of the two men be cut off.

Dar sentenced Amanat Ali and Sher Mohammad to life imprisonment and imposed $3,550 fine on each of them, the English-language Dawn newspaper reported.

They have also been made liable to pay $8,275 to the tortured girl in compensation.

The grisly crime had occurred on Sep 28 in Zafarkay village where Fazeelat Bibi, 18, worked at a brick kiln.

Ali had sought Bibi's hand in marriage but her family turned down the proposal. The dejected man along with his relative and three other people kidnapped the girl, tried to strangle her and then chopped off her nose and ears.

Police are still hunting for the three accomplices.

Dawn said the teenager's mother died of shock when she saw her daughter maimed and drenched in blood.

The Islamic sharia laws were enforced during the rule of former military dictator General Zia ul-Haq. Controversial punishments under it are given rarely and have never been carried out since their introduction in 1980s.(DPA)