http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/12/23/an-eye-for-an-eye-a-nose-for-a-nose-115875-21917643/LAHORE, Pakistan — A court in Pakistan's most liberal city ordered two men to have their nose and ears chopped off as punishment for inflicting similar injuries on a woman they abducted, an official said Tuesday.
An anti-terrorism court headed by judge Khalid Naveed Dar handed down the ruling in the eastern city of Lahore on Monday, sentencing them to life in prison and fining them each 700,000 rupees (about 8,300 dollars).
"The court ordered that the nose and ears of Sher Mohammad and Ammanat Ali be chopped off as part of an Islamic punishment of a nose for a nose and ears for ears," court official Azhar Ameen told AFP.
The two brothers, Sher Mohammad and Amanat Ali, abducted their 22-year-old cousin, Fazeelat Bibi, at gunpoint in September after her father refused to let her marry Mohammad.
"They put a noose around her neck and tried to strangle her. After failing to do so, Sher Mohammad chopped of her nose and two ears with a knife," government prosecutor Ehtesham Qadir told Reuters.
Pakistani courts have handed down similar punishments in the past but none were actually enacted and they are frequently revoked on appeal.
Pakistan struggles with religious conservatism. Since July 2007, Islamist militants have waged a campaign of bomb attacks killing more than 2,700 people to avenge the government's alliance in the US-led war on Al-Qaeda.
