A Pakistani man and some of his relatives chopped off his wife’s feet after accusing her of being promiscuous, police said on Saturday.
The woman survived the gruesome attack, the latest in a wave of assaults that has raised international concern about the plight of women in rural Pakistan.
”It is a shameful act of cruelty against a woman,” said Talat Ali, a senior police official in Punjab.
The 32-year-old woman told police her feet were chopped off on June 24 by her husband, her father-in-law, a brother-in-law and two others after they accused her of being ”of bad character”, a euphemism for promiscuous.
Violence against women is common in rural Pakistan where tribal and feudal customs hold sway.
The latest incident occurred in central Punjab province, where the 2002 gang-rape of a woman, Mukhtaran Mai, on the orders of a village council, triggered an international outcry.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who is trying to project his country as a moderate Muslim nation, has condemned violence against women.
The woman in the latest incident had separated from her husband but had gone to his family’s house to see her daughter, police said.
Her father-in-law chained her up. That night, he and the others took her to the edge of their village and cut off her feet.
Two days later, her parents reported her missing and police raided the house, found her and took her to hospital, where she remains.
”There is no evidence that she was of bad character,” Ali said. — Guardian Unlimited Â