MULTAN, March 30: Mukhtaran Mai, the victim of notorious panchayat-enforced Meerwala gangrape, has accused the area police of pressing her family for striking a deal with three sodomy accused who had criminally assaulted her brother Shakoor.

(To cover up the sodomy case, the accused had implicated Shakoor on charges of adultry and convened the panchayat which ordered rape of his sister to settle the score.)

Talking to Dawn on Sunday, Mukhtaran said Jatoi police station in charge inspector Umer Draz was employing pressure tactics to make her family patch up with Jameel, Punnu and Manzoor.

The case is currently under trial with a local court in Muzaffargarh district. She said the government had established a police check-post near her home in Meerwala for her safety in the face of threats being hurled by her perpetrators, the Mastois.

“Since the posting of ASI Talib Shah as in charge, the Meerwala post has become a dera of the Mastois who often pass disgusting remarks whenever someone from her family passes by the post.”

She was worried about the safety of her brother Shakoor who, she said, had been the main target of the Mastois’ verbal assaults since the beginning of the sodomy trial.

About the announcements made by Governor Khalid Maqbool during a visit to Meerwala to console her, Mukhtaran Mai said that buildings of both boys and girls primary schools had been completed but the education department had yet to appoint teachers.

Similarly, she added, the electrification of her village was one of the governor’s promises which had yet to be materialized.

Adorned at home and abroad for her robust struggle to get justice, Mukhtaran Mai urged the governor to honour his words viz-a-viz both security of life to her and her family and development work in her village.

Mukhtaran has recently been to Spain to attend conference on women rights chaired by Queen Rania of Jordan.