Hunt continues for Pakistan gang rapists

The gang rape case has outraged Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Police in Pakistan are continuing to hunt for three men wanted for carrying out the gang rape of an 18-year-old girl on the orders of a tribal council.

One of the four men accused of carrying out the rape was arrested Friday by police in Baluchistan province, several hundred kilometers from the village of Meerwala in Punjab province where the rape took place.

However, three others remain on the run with police saying they believe the suspects have fled far from the village.

The case, which has made headlines around the world, has outraged much of Pakistan and thrown the spotlight on the country's tribal courts.

On Friday a man accused of blasphemy was reportedly stoned to death by villagers in Punjab province, reports said. (Full story.)

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The rape was apparently ordered by tribal elders as punishment for an alleged affair between the girl's younger brother and a woman from a tribe considered higher caste.

The family of the girl at the center of the case told reporters those who carried out the rape were well known in the village.

The girl's father said he was forced to witness the incident and begged for it not to happen.

Begged for mercy

"No one helped us," the man told reporters. "We begged for mercy in the name of God from them, but they held guns on us and so we were helpless."

Parts of Pakistan still have a tradition of tribal justice where some crimes are punished outside the framework of the Pakistani legal system.

On Friday Pakistan's Supreme Court criticized local police, accusing them of negligence for failing to arrest the men immediately after the rape was carried out on June 22.

Police reportedly took more than a week to even register a case, and only then after being pressed to do so by a delegation of lawyers.

Officials heading up the investigations have been ordered to deliver weekly progress reports to the court beginning July 11.

Meanwhile Pakistani President, General Pervez Musharraf, has ordered the equivalent of $8,000 in compensation be paid to the girl and her family.

He has also said a school will be built in the girl's village bearing and will be named after her.

'Like a lynching'

The incident has created an outcry from human rights groups and legal experts both inside and out of Pakistan.

"It's almost like a lynching," Pakistani attorney Naeem Bokhair told CNN. "Except in this case there is a rape involved whereas in the Old West the mob would just lynch the person."

The young rape victim (left), seen here with her distraught mother

Human rights group Amnesty International has also condemned the rape urging Pakistani authorities to clamp down on tribal councils and prevent them from taking the law into their own hands.

In a statement released Friday the group said it was concerned at reports that such councils had frequently and illegally sentenced people to "cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments."

Amnesty said that the Meerwala "trial" took place in the presence of several hundred village residents, "none of whom took any action to prevent the rape."

"Given the wide local participation, it must be assumed that local police was aware of the event as it unfolded, if not directly present during the incident," the group said.

-- CNN correspondent Tom Mintier in Islamabad contributed to this report