Word: mastois
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Dates: during 2002-2002
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Shaking behind her black chador, or veil, 18-year-old Makhutar Mai stood before a jury made up of men who hated her. Mai is a dairy farmer's daughter, a Tatla Gujjar, and the council members before her were all from a higher, landed caste group, the Mastoi Baloch. Mai's brother had dared to romance a girl from the higher caste, and in the dusty mid-day sun of rural Pakistani Punjab, a rowdy crowd gathered to demand eye-for-an-eye-style justice. The six seated elders finally delivered their judgment. To restore the caste's honor...
...next day, Shakoor's uncle tried to get him released by proposing a formal panchayat. A council was formed by three members of each clan group. After hearing testimony it came to a decision: that Shakoor should marry his girlfriend, and one Tatla girl should be given to a Mastoi son for marriage, along with a parcel of land. The Mastois didn't feel that was enough, so they convened their own council made up of Mastoi men, many of them armed with Kalashnikovs, and demanded that Mai be raped. After her ordeal, she was forced to walk home through...