The Independent
Indian teen whose body was found hanging off bridge was killed by her family for wearing jeans, says report
Maroosha Muzaffar
Tue, July 27, 2021, 7:57 AM
File: Political activists hold placards and a cut-out of India’s prime minister Narendra Modi during a protest condemning the alleged gang-rape and murder of a teenaged woman at Hathras in Uttar Pradesh state (AFP via Getty Images)
A 17-year-old girl from India’s northern Uttar Pradesh state was killed last week and her body dumped on a river bridge, allegedly by members of her extended family who were enraged at her choice of clothes.
The grandfather and uncles of the teenager, identified as Neha Paswan, allegedly beat her severely with sticks and rods after she went against their diktat and continued to wear jeans — clothing her family considered inappropriate.
Reports in Indian media outlets said the family repeatedly objected to her “western clothes,” exposing the deep roots of patriarchy in the country’s social fabric.
Shakuntala Devi, the teen’s mother, was quoted by the BBC as saying that the teen was adamant about wearing jeans despite strong objections from her grandparents.
“She had kept a day-long religious fast. In the evening, she put on a pair of jeans and a top and performed her rituals. When her grandparents objected to her attire, Neha retorted that jeans were made to be worn and that she would wear it,” Ms Devi said.
This led to an argument that escalated to severe violence against the teen, according to the BBC. The girl’s grandparents and other relatives reportedly beat her unconscious.
Police said the grandfather and two of her uncles refused to let Ms Devi accompany them to the local district hospital. They instead allegedly took the help of a local auto-rickshaw driver to dispose of the body.
“They wouldn’t let me accompany them so I alerted my relatives who went to the district hospital looking for her but couldn’t find her,” Ms Devi was quoted as saying by the BBC.
The next morning, Ms Devi and her other relatives received news that a girl’s body was dangling from a bridge over the Gandak river that flows through the region, and upon inspection it was found to be of her daughter’s.
Police officials said the men had tried to throw the body over the bridge, but it got stuck instead.
Police registered a case of murder and destruction of evidence against 10 people, including the girl’s aunts and cousins, according to local reports.
So far, authorities have arrested four people including the grandfather, two uncles and the auto-rickshaw driver. A search is on for the others.
The girl received serious head injuries when she was beaten up, leading to her death, the Indian Express quoted senior police official Yash Tripathi as saying.
The postmortem report also suggested she had received a “severe injury and fracture in the head (sic)”.
Her extended family — including her uncles and grandfather — had been persistent in objecting to the girl’s routine activities and life choices.
They had told her to quit school and admonished her for not wearing traditional Indian clothing.
The teen’s father Amarnath Paswan, who had been living in Ludhiana city in Punjab state where he worked as a construction site labourer — told the media that he laboured to send her to school.
This is not the first time a gruesome crime of this nature was committed.
A 20-year-old girl was beaten by her father for running away from her abusive in-laws in central India’s Madhya Pradesh state last month. In another shocking incident, two girls were beaten up by their family members for talking on mobile phones in the state’s Dhar district.
Several social media users paid tributes to the deceased. One tweeted: “Sorry Neha we let you down - this is a blot on us as society!”
In the last four years, crimes against women have increased in Uttar Pradesh by over 66 per cent, according to the latest available data.
Women in India mostly bear the brunt of these so-called “honour killings,” carried out by family members based on the belief that their actions have brought dishonour on their community.
A 2018 report says that more than 300 cases of honour killings were reported across the country in the last three years.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/in ... 736432.htm
HONOR KILLINGS
The Daily Beast
Mom Helped Son Behead His Pregnant Sister Before He Posed for a Selfie, Police Say
Barbie Latza Nadeau
Tue, December 7, 2021, 5:17 AM
Navesh Chitrakar via Reuters
A pregnant 19-year-old woman in India was allegedly decapitated with a sickle by her younger brother, who then posed for a selfie with her severed head along with their mother.
The horrific murder—deemed an honor killing after the woman eloped with her fiance without her family’s consent—took place in the western Indian state of Maharashtra on Sunday, according to the BBC. Both the young man, identified as Sanket Mote, and the pair’s mother, identified as Shobhabai Mote, have been arrested in connection with the murder of the woman, named Kirti Avinash Thore.
“Kirti was preparing tea when Sanket attacked her from behind with a sickle while the mother caught her daughter’s legs,” Kailash Prajapati, Assistant Police Commissioner, SDPO Vaijapur told local media. “He beheaded her and brought the head outside the house. We suspect that the mother and son took a selfie with her head. We have sent the phone to the forensic lab to try and retrieve the photo. The duo then left on the bike.”
Local media reports suggest that the woman’s mother and brother came to visit the couple ostensibly to reconcile, but when her newlywed husband left the room to give them privacy, the pair allegedly killed her. The husband reportedly fled the house out of fear he might also be killed.
It is unclear if the sickle was in the house or if the mother and son had concealed it with intent to use it.
Indian news agency ANI says the 38-year-old mother and her 18-year-old son dragged the victim’s head out of the house and put it on display in front of neighbors, apparently admitting to the crime.
The man told police that his sister failed to secure consent before marrying her boyfriend last June. She had become estranged from her family since the elopement but her mother visited her a week before she was killed, at which time she learned her daughter was pregnant.
She and her son returned a week later and allegedly carried out the horrific murder.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/cm/ ... 02684.html
Mom Helped Son Behead His Pregnant Sister Before He Posed for a Selfie, Police Say
Barbie Latza Nadeau
Tue, December 7, 2021, 5:17 AM
Navesh Chitrakar via Reuters
A pregnant 19-year-old woman in India was allegedly decapitated with a sickle by her younger brother, who then posed for a selfie with her severed head along with their mother.
The horrific murder—deemed an honor killing after the woman eloped with her fiance without her family’s consent—took place in the western Indian state of Maharashtra on Sunday, according to the BBC. Both the young man, identified as Sanket Mote, and the pair’s mother, identified as Shobhabai Mote, have been arrested in connection with the murder of the woman, named Kirti Avinash Thore.
“Kirti was preparing tea when Sanket attacked her from behind with a sickle while the mother caught her daughter’s legs,” Kailash Prajapati, Assistant Police Commissioner, SDPO Vaijapur told local media. “He beheaded her and brought the head outside the house. We suspect that the mother and son took a selfie with her head. We have sent the phone to the forensic lab to try and retrieve the photo. The duo then left on the bike.”
Local media reports suggest that the woman’s mother and brother came to visit the couple ostensibly to reconcile, but when her newlywed husband left the room to give them privacy, the pair allegedly killed her. The husband reportedly fled the house out of fear he might also be killed.
It is unclear if the sickle was in the house or if the mother and son had concealed it with intent to use it.
Indian news agency ANI says the 38-year-old mother and her 18-year-old son dragged the victim’s head out of the house and put it on display in front of neighbors, apparently admitting to the crime.
The man told police that his sister failed to secure consent before marrying her boyfriend last June. She had become estranged from her family since the elopement but her mother visited her a week before she was killed, at which time she learned her daughter was pregnant.
She and her son returned a week later and allegedly carried out the horrific murder.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/cm/ ... 02684.html
Re: HONOR KILLINGS
Associated Press
Pakistani court acquits model's killer on parents' pardon
FILE - Police officers present Waseem Azeem, the brother of slain social media star Qandeel Baloch, to the media following his arrest, at a police station in Multan, Pakistan, July 17, 2016. Azeem who was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 for strangling his sister, Qandeel Baloch, was acquitted of murder Monday, Feb. 14, 2022, after his parents pardoned him under Islamic law, an attorney for the man's family said. (AP Photo/Asim Tanvee, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
More
ASIM TANVEER
Mon, February 14, 2022, 8:29 AM
MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) — A Pakistani man sentenced to life in prison in 2019 for strangling his sister, a model on social media, was acquitted of murder Monday after his parents pardoned him under Islamic law, an attorney for the man's family said.
Waseem Azeem was arrested in 2016 after he confessed to killing Qandeel Baloch, 26, for posting what he called “shameful” pictures on Facebook. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison but his parents had sought his release, said Sardar Mahboob, a lawyer who represents Azeem and his family.
Islamic law in Pakistan allows a murder victim’s family to pardon a convicted killer.
Baloch’s murder at the time drew nationwide condemnation, but critics suspected Azeem could walk out of prison after his conviction if his parents forgave him.
Mahboob said Azeem could be freed as early as this week after the completion of paperwork.
The siblings' mother, Anwar Bibi, welcomed the court order. “I am happy over the acquittal of my son, but we are still sad for our daughter's loss," she said.
She told reporters that her slain daughter cannot come back “but I am thankful to the court, which ordered the release of my son at our request."
Baloch was found strangled in her home near the city of Multan in Punjab province. She was killed after she posted racy pictures on Facebook of herself with a Muslim cleric, Mufti Abdul Qawi, who was later arrested for his alleged involvement in the murder.
The cleric was later freed as police said they could not establish a link to the murder.
Nearly 1,000 Pakistani women are murdered by close relatives each year in so-called “honor killings” for violating conservative norms on love and marriage. Such killings are considered murder. But Islamic law in Pakistan allows a murder victim’s family to pardon the killer, which often allows those convicted of honor killings to escape punishment.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/cm/ ... 13689.html
Pakistani court acquits model's killer on parents' pardon
FILE - Police officers present Waseem Azeem, the brother of slain social media star Qandeel Baloch, to the media following his arrest, at a police station in Multan, Pakistan, July 17, 2016. Azeem who was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 for strangling his sister, Qandeel Baloch, was acquitted of murder Monday, Feb. 14, 2022, after his parents pardoned him under Islamic law, an attorney for the man's family said. (AP Photo/Asim Tanvee, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
More
ASIM TANVEER
Mon, February 14, 2022, 8:29 AM
MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) — A Pakistani man sentenced to life in prison in 2019 for strangling his sister, a model on social media, was acquitted of murder Monday after his parents pardoned him under Islamic law, an attorney for the man's family said.
Waseem Azeem was arrested in 2016 after he confessed to killing Qandeel Baloch, 26, for posting what he called “shameful” pictures on Facebook. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison but his parents had sought his release, said Sardar Mahboob, a lawyer who represents Azeem and his family.
Islamic law in Pakistan allows a murder victim’s family to pardon a convicted killer.
Baloch’s murder at the time drew nationwide condemnation, but critics suspected Azeem could walk out of prison after his conviction if his parents forgave him.
Mahboob said Azeem could be freed as early as this week after the completion of paperwork.
The siblings' mother, Anwar Bibi, welcomed the court order. “I am happy over the acquittal of my son, but we are still sad for our daughter's loss," she said.
She told reporters that her slain daughter cannot come back “but I am thankful to the court, which ordered the release of my son at our request."
Baloch was found strangled in her home near the city of Multan in Punjab province. She was killed after she posted racy pictures on Facebook of herself with a Muslim cleric, Mufti Abdul Qawi, who was later arrested for his alleged involvement in the murder.
The cleric was later freed as police said they could not establish a link to the murder.
Nearly 1,000 Pakistani women are murdered by close relatives each year in so-called “honor killings” for violating conservative norms on love and marriage. Such killings are considered murder. But Islamic law in Pakistan allows a murder victim’s family to pardon the killer, which often allows those convicted of honor killings to escape punishment.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/cm/ ... 13689.html
Re: HONOR KILLINGS
Associated Press
Pakistan police arrest 6 men over 'honor killing' of sisters
Sun, May 22, 2022, 8:36 AM
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani police arrested six men from the same family on Sunday, accused of murdering two sisters who were from the same village but also had Spanish citizenship.
Police said that Urooj Abbas, 21, and Anisa Abbas, 23, were allegedly killed for refusing to bring their husbands — cousins from forced marriages — to Spain. They were severely tortured and shot dead in the Gujrat district of Punjab province, which neighbors India.
Officer Ataur Rehman said that murder charges were leveled against the victims’ brother, a paternal uncle, both husbands, a cousin, and both fathers-in-law. Two unknown suspects and another relative also charged in the murder were still at large.
Forced marriages are common in rural areas of conservative Pakistan, where relatives don't hesitate to kill women who refuse them or ignore the opinions of family elders. Rights groups say around 1,000 women are killed every year in so-called honor killings in Pakistan.
Pakistan police arrest 6 men over 'honor killing' of sisters
Sun, May 22, 2022, 8:36 AM
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani police arrested six men from the same family on Sunday, accused of murdering two sisters who were from the same village but also had Spanish citizenship.
Police said that Urooj Abbas, 21, and Anisa Abbas, 23, were allegedly killed for refusing to bring their husbands — cousins from forced marriages — to Spain. They were severely tortured and shot dead in the Gujrat district of Punjab province, which neighbors India.
Officer Ataur Rehman said that murder charges were leveled against the victims’ brother, a paternal uncle, both husbands, a cousin, and both fathers-in-law. Two unknown suspects and another relative also charged in the murder were still at large.
Forced marriages are common in rural areas of conservative Pakistan, where relatives don't hesitate to kill women who refuse them or ignore the opinions of family elders. Rights groups say around 1,000 women are killed every year in so-called honor killings in Pakistan.
Re: HONOR KILLINGS
SOCIETY: A DEADLY TRADITION
Nisar Ahmad Khan Published August 7, 2022 Updated about 22 hours ago
Civil society comes together to protest cases of honour killings | Reuters
It was too much for the villagers of Shangal Dar to watch as police exhumed the body of a minor girl in front of them in broad daylight. None of them could stay and witness the entire process. The judicial magistrate and a team of doctors had to look on though, as the girl’s body was to be autopsied under medico-legal procedures (MLP) to unearth ambiguities over her death.
Shangal Dar is a far-off village in Torghar District of Hazara Division, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is mainly home to slum dwellers, and its women are largely uneducated. Age-old customs are still prevalent there, such as the heinous act of murdering girls and women in the name of honour. Those labelled perverted, or “chor” in the local dialect, including couples who have engaged in extramarital affairs, are condemned to death. No one had dared to question this cruel law of the land, until now.
The local rumour mill threw up different opinions over the police action. Some looked at the exhumation as an insult to corpses, while others were hopeful that perhaps fear of police investigation could curb killings in the garb of honour in the future.
Such police action had never occurred previously, allowing murderers to go scot-free. In the deeply conservative society of Torghar, eliminating a woman is a non-cognisable offence, and perpetrators routinely escape justice.
Honour killings are most rife in the remote districts of Torghar and Kohistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Many lives are lost in the dark as this old custom is perpetuated to this day by influential jirgas and conservative men under the garb of religion
The 13-year-old girl, whose body was being exhumed, was buried in the Asharay Pattah locality of Shangal Dar. Her murderer is believed to be her father, who dug her grave clandestinely at night, after killing her. He and his family maintain that the girl had been in a relationship with a man who she kept in touch with through a secret mobile phone, hidden particularly from her father and brothers.
The police confirmed the victim possessed a cell phone.
The father changed his story frequently. Sometimes he said his daughter had died a natural death; other times he said she had committed suicide. But the autopsy, according to police, revealed that the victim had been gunned down, contrary to her father’s testimonies.
According to locals, this is one of the rare cases where police intervened, based on a tip-off, to investigate a girl’s murder under the pretext of honour. Hassan Khan, the station-house officer (SHO) at the Judbah police station, says the accused could have escaped justice if police had not been quick to act and arrest him under Section 202 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).
The families of victims of chor often do not move any court or notify the police about the murders. “Such crimes where women are killed or handed over to rivals to settle bloody feuds under the wani custom are mostly perpetrated by families and clans covertly, and nobody comes forward to register an FIR,” points out the SHO. But Section 202 empowers police to act on their own when a crime is perpetrated.
Zahid Khan, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s district coordinator in Torghar, has reported various heinous crimes and murders committed under the garb of honour. He says that the cold-blooded elimination of a young girl by her father, allegedly over her telephonic relations with a man, is nothing exceptional; such violence is common in the area.
Afzal Kohistani (right) was shot and killed for campaigning against honour killings | Dawn file photo /Umar Bacha
He says that, in the recent past, men and women who married out of their free will or choice or even indulged in verbal contact with the opposite sex were murdered either upon a jirga’s decree or by their own family members’ actions. “Married couples can also be declared chor. This centuries-old custom still very much exists and the victims and their families suffer unimaginably,” Zahid Khan tells Eos.
The HRCP coordinator recalls another horrific case where a man mutilated the genitals/reproductive organs of his wife upon suspicion of her having an affair with someone else. “The incident happened in 2016 in Oghi, after the family migrated from Torghar. The accused was arrested. The victim was shifted, profusely bleeding, to the Ayub Medical Complex Hospital in Abbottabad,” he remembers.
“The mortality ratio of couples or individuals targeted in the name of honour is much higher than that of incidents reported to the police,” Khan explains, “as families still practise this ancient custom without question.”
Ulema and religious clerics are influential in the highly conservative Torghar. Maulana Safiullah is considered a liberal cleric, who condemns human and women’s rights violations. He maintains that Islam strictly forbids the killing of human beings under the pretext of honour. “Murdering someone in the name of honour is as punishable as any other assassination, in the eyes of Islam,” Maulana Safiullah clarifies.
But clerics settled in the remote parts of Torghar district never condemn the killings of men and women in the name of honour, says Maulana Safiullah, and that is one of the major reasons why the custom of labelling and killing people as chor has not ended. “The ulema in our district even decreed a family to give away their three-year-old girl in marriage to one of their rivals in order to settle a bloody feud,” he says.
The majority of local residents get their minor girls engaged soon after birth. When the girls grow up and refuse to get married to their fiancé, they face the same fate as the 13-year-old killed in Shangal Dar. “There have been many incidents in the recent months and years where such girls, after attaining puberty, married out of their free will and were killed by their families along with their partners,” Maulana Safiullah says.
However, there is now a clear division of opinion over honour killings and some clerics are considered to be hardliners while others are seen as liberal and progressive. A group of ulema now openly oppose the traditional customs being practised by the jirgas and raise their voice against such violence during Friday prayer sermons and public appearances.
The erstwhile tribal belt of Torghar became a settled district in 2011, but it remains an area without a single middle school for girls or even a college for boys, Maulana Safiullah elaborates.
Along with Torghar, Kohistan district is a hotbed for honour killings. Men and women act as judge, jury and executioner of women they deem perverted or immoral. According to official data, both areas have the highest number of cases of Gender Based Violence (GBV) and honour killings in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Afzal Kohistani was one of the first Pakistanis to publicly challenge the custom of chor in Kohistan in 2012. He was gunned down in a busy commercial area in Abbottabad in 2019.
A video that most would find innocent is what led to the death of Kohistani. The video was made by one of his brothers, showing five women singing a wedding song and two men dancing to its rhythm. One of the men dancing was also Kohistani’s brother, Gul Nazar. The video went viral on social media and the group of men and women involved were all decreed as chor by a local jirga.
“So far nine people — the five girls seen cheering in the video and four of my brothers, including Afzal — have fallen prey to this custom, says Bin Yaseer, who filmed the happy scene of song and dance. “The perpetrators are still after me and my brother, Gul Nazar, and we have frequently been changing our residence to avoid execution,” he tells Eos.
shutterstock
Today, the two brothers are called “zinda laash” [the walking dead] and Bin Yaseer affirms that is exactly what his life has been like. He believes that the decree issued by the jirga, led by a cleric, will certainly be carried out and the matter would meet its end only after he and his brother have been killed. He claims that a squad of more than a 100 men has been appointed by the jirga in Kolai-Palas to execute its decree. He and Gul Nazar are followed 24/7, so they move from place to place and are under police protection.
“The life of a chor is hell in this life,” says Bin Yaseer. “Since being declared chor by the jirga, we have lost almost all our male family members. We have lost the livelihood that supported over 45 people, 22 of them orphans, including Afzal Kohistani’s four children and his two widows,” Bin Yaseer says.
“Our agricultural land, houses and whatever we possessed is occupied by our enemies and the families of the five girls killed. We are living underground to protect our lives. We are at the gallows, living and dying every day,” he adds despondently.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police recently released data regarding Gender Based Violence (GBV) for last year, based on reported incidents across the province. It reveals as many as 125 women were killed in the name of honour, while 299 others lost their lives to domestic violence. As many as 343 women were raped, 154 harassed sexually and physically, and as many as 1,522 were abducted across the province.
“We have actively been policing to bring an end to assassinations in the name of honour in Kohistan district,” the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Hazara range Mirvais Niaz says.
He says that a total of 24 people were killed in the name of honour in the Hazara division in 2021 and almost half of them were from Upper Kohistan. Five people were killed in Mansehra, three in Abbottabad, two each in Lower Kohistan and Kolai-Palas. Yet, not a single honour killing was reported in Torghar and Haripur districts.
“We have arrested almost 90 percent of the accused in honour-related murders but cases are still there,” admits the DIG.
A resident of Kolai-Palas, Sher Mohammad Kohee says, “Though there is a slight decline in killings and other brutalities committed in the name of honour since those five girls cheering a dancer in a party were killed under chor, the custom still exists everywhere, particularly in the remote parts of Kohistan district.”
The DIG says that the Hazara police also constituted committees of ulema and influential people, headed by the district police officers, in Upper Kohistan, Lower Kohistan and Kolai-Palas, to urge an end to killings in the name of honour. “Seminars and jirgas are being held to sensitise people to stand against the killings in the name of honour or under the chor custom,” he says.
“Because of the effective role executed by the police, now prayer leaders in Kohistan have openly been opposing killings in the name of honour during Friday sermons, declaring such practices repugnant to Islamic injunctions and the writ of the law,” says Niaz.
Maulana Asmatullah who belongs to Kolai-Palas is a thrice-elected MPA and leads a jirga. According to him, killing women in the name of honour is a social custom and has nothing to do with Islam.
“The jirga that is held to decide the fate of chor is not held under the Islamic Shariah,” Maulana Asmatullah says. “Witnesses lie to get the accused couples punished. The government should take serious remedial measures to do away with such traditions.”
The National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) has also initiated a campaign to amend laws dealing with killing in the name of honour and other crimes inflicted on women.
Nilofar Bakhtiar, who pushed for legislation calling for perpetrators of so-called honour killings to be punished when she served as minister of women’s affairs, currently chairs the NCSW. She says, “I was the only federal minister and lawmaker of my party [PMLQ] who persuaded the ruling and opposition benches in 2004 to pass the ‘Anti Honour Killing’ bill and, now, as chairperson of the NCSW, I have initiated a campaign to get it and such other laws amended, to make them flaw free.”
It’s definitely a start and all such efforts are required. But changing mindsets in remote areas like Torghar and Kohistan will require much more than well-intentioned parliamentary interventions.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Mansehra.
Published in Dawn, EOS, August 7th, 2022
https://www.dawn.com/news/1703709/socie ... -tradition
Nisar Ahmad Khan Published August 7, 2022 Updated about 22 hours ago
Civil society comes together to protest cases of honour killings | Reuters
It was too much for the villagers of Shangal Dar to watch as police exhumed the body of a minor girl in front of them in broad daylight. None of them could stay and witness the entire process. The judicial magistrate and a team of doctors had to look on though, as the girl’s body was to be autopsied under medico-legal procedures (MLP) to unearth ambiguities over her death.
Shangal Dar is a far-off village in Torghar District of Hazara Division, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is mainly home to slum dwellers, and its women are largely uneducated. Age-old customs are still prevalent there, such as the heinous act of murdering girls and women in the name of honour. Those labelled perverted, or “chor” in the local dialect, including couples who have engaged in extramarital affairs, are condemned to death. No one had dared to question this cruel law of the land, until now.
The local rumour mill threw up different opinions over the police action. Some looked at the exhumation as an insult to corpses, while others were hopeful that perhaps fear of police investigation could curb killings in the garb of honour in the future.
Such police action had never occurred previously, allowing murderers to go scot-free. In the deeply conservative society of Torghar, eliminating a woman is a non-cognisable offence, and perpetrators routinely escape justice.
Honour killings are most rife in the remote districts of Torghar and Kohistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Many lives are lost in the dark as this old custom is perpetuated to this day by influential jirgas and conservative men under the garb of religion
The 13-year-old girl, whose body was being exhumed, was buried in the Asharay Pattah locality of Shangal Dar. Her murderer is believed to be her father, who dug her grave clandestinely at night, after killing her. He and his family maintain that the girl had been in a relationship with a man who she kept in touch with through a secret mobile phone, hidden particularly from her father and brothers.
The police confirmed the victim possessed a cell phone.
The father changed his story frequently. Sometimes he said his daughter had died a natural death; other times he said she had committed suicide. But the autopsy, according to police, revealed that the victim had been gunned down, contrary to her father’s testimonies.
According to locals, this is one of the rare cases where police intervened, based on a tip-off, to investigate a girl’s murder under the pretext of honour. Hassan Khan, the station-house officer (SHO) at the Judbah police station, says the accused could have escaped justice if police had not been quick to act and arrest him under Section 202 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).
The families of victims of chor often do not move any court or notify the police about the murders. “Such crimes where women are killed or handed over to rivals to settle bloody feuds under the wani custom are mostly perpetrated by families and clans covertly, and nobody comes forward to register an FIR,” points out the SHO. But Section 202 empowers police to act on their own when a crime is perpetrated.
Zahid Khan, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s district coordinator in Torghar, has reported various heinous crimes and murders committed under the garb of honour. He says that the cold-blooded elimination of a young girl by her father, allegedly over her telephonic relations with a man, is nothing exceptional; such violence is common in the area.
Afzal Kohistani (right) was shot and killed for campaigning against honour killings | Dawn file photo /Umar Bacha
He says that, in the recent past, men and women who married out of their free will or choice or even indulged in verbal contact with the opposite sex were murdered either upon a jirga’s decree or by their own family members’ actions. “Married couples can also be declared chor. This centuries-old custom still very much exists and the victims and their families suffer unimaginably,” Zahid Khan tells Eos.
The HRCP coordinator recalls another horrific case where a man mutilated the genitals/reproductive organs of his wife upon suspicion of her having an affair with someone else. “The incident happened in 2016 in Oghi, after the family migrated from Torghar. The accused was arrested. The victim was shifted, profusely bleeding, to the Ayub Medical Complex Hospital in Abbottabad,” he remembers.
“The mortality ratio of couples or individuals targeted in the name of honour is much higher than that of incidents reported to the police,” Khan explains, “as families still practise this ancient custom without question.”
Ulema and religious clerics are influential in the highly conservative Torghar. Maulana Safiullah is considered a liberal cleric, who condemns human and women’s rights violations. He maintains that Islam strictly forbids the killing of human beings under the pretext of honour. “Murdering someone in the name of honour is as punishable as any other assassination, in the eyes of Islam,” Maulana Safiullah clarifies.
But clerics settled in the remote parts of Torghar district never condemn the killings of men and women in the name of honour, says Maulana Safiullah, and that is one of the major reasons why the custom of labelling and killing people as chor has not ended. “The ulema in our district even decreed a family to give away their three-year-old girl in marriage to one of their rivals in order to settle a bloody feud,” he says.
The majority of local residents get their minor girls engaged soon after birth. When the girls grow up and refuse to get married to their fiancé, they face the same fate as the 13-year-old killed in Shangal Dar. “There have been many incidents in the recent months and years where such girls, after attaining puberty, married out of their free will and were killed by their families along with their partners,” Maulana Safiullah says.
However, there is now a clear division of opinion over honour killings and some clerics are considered to be hardliners while others are seen as liberal and progressive. A group of ulema now openly oppose the traditional customs being practised by the jirgas and raise their voice against such violence during Friday prayer sermons and public appearances.
The erstwhile tribal belt of Torghar became a settled district in 2011, but it remains an area without a single middle school for girls or even a college for boys, Maulana Safiullah elaborates.
Along with Torghar, Kohistan district is a hotbed for honour killings. Men and women act as judge, jury and executioner of women they deem perverted or immoral. According to official data, both areas have the highest number of cases of Gender Based Violence (GBV) and honour killings in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Afzal Kohistani was one of the first Pakistanis to publicly challenge the custom of chor in Kohistan in 2012. He was gunned down in a busy commercial area in Abbottabad in 2019.
A video that most would find innocent is what led to the death of Kohistani. The video was made by one of his brothers, showing five women singing a wedding song and two men dancing to its rhythm. One of the men dancing was also Kohistani’s brother, Gul Nazar. The video went viral on social media and the group of men and women involved were all decreed as chor by a local jirga.
“So far nine people — the five girls seen cheering in the video and four of my brothers, including Afzal — have fallen prey to this custom, says Bin Yaseer, who filmed the happy scene of song and dance. “The perpetrators are still after me and my brother, Gul Nazar, and we have frequently been changing our residence to avoid execution,” he tells Eos.
shutterstock
Today, the two brothers are called “zinda laash” [the walking dead] and Bin Yaseer affirms that is exactly what his life has been like. He believes that the decree issued by the jirga, led by a cleric, will certainly be carried out and the matter would meet its end only after he and his brother have been killed. He claims that a squad of more than a 100 men has been appointed by the jirga in Kolai-Palas to execute its decree. He and Gul Nazar are followed 24/7, so they move from place to place and are under police protection.
“The life of a chor is hell in this life,” says Bin Yaseer. “Since being declared chor by the jirga, we have lost almost all our male family members. We have lost the livelihood that supported over 45 people, 22 of them orphans, including Afzal Kohistani’s four children and his two widows,” Bin Yaseer says.
“Our agricultural land, houses and whatever we possessed is occupied by our enemies and the families of the five girls killed. We are living underground to protect our lives. We are at the gallows, living and dying every day,” he adds despondently.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police recently released data regarding Gender Based Violence (GBV) for last year, based on reported incidents across the province. It reveals as many as 125 women were killed in the name of honour, while 299 others lost their lives to domestic violence. As many as 343 women were raped, 154 harassed sexually and physically, and as many as 1,522 were abducted across the province.
“We have actively been policing to bring an end to assassinations in the name of honour in Kohistan district,” the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Hazara range Mirvais Niaz says.
He says that a total of 24 people were killed in the name of honour in the Hazara division in 2021 and almost half of them were from Upper Kohistan. Five people were killed in Mansehra, three in Abbottabad, two each in Lower Kohistan and Kolai-Palas. Yet, not a single honour killing was reported in Torghar and Haripur districts.
“We have arrested almost 90 percent of the accused in honour-related murders but cases are still there,” admits the DIG.
A resident of Kolai-Palas, Sher Mohammad Kohee says, “Though there is a slight decline in killings and other brutalities committed in the name of honour since those five girls cheering a dancer in a party were killed under chor, the custom still exists everywhere, particularly in the remote parts of Kohistan district.”
The DIG says that the Hazara police also constituted committees of ulema and influential people, headed by the district police officers, in Upper Kohistan, Lower Kohistan and Kolai-Palas, to urge an end to killings in the name of honour. “Seminars and jirgas are being held to sensitise people to stand against the killings in the name of honour or under the chor custom,” he says.
“Because of the effective role executed by the police, now prayer leaders in Kohistan have openly been opposing killings in the name of honour during Friday sermons, declaring such practices repugnant to Islamic injunctions and the writ of the law,” says Niaz.
Maulana Asmatullah who belongs to Kolai-Palas is a thrice-elected MPA and leads a jirga. According to him, killing women in the name of honour is a social custom and has nothing to do with Islam.
“The jirga that is held to decide the fate of chor is not held under the Islamic Shariah,” Maulana Asmatullah says. “Witnesses lie to get the accused couples punished. The government should take serious remedial measures to do away with such traditions.”
The National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) has also initiated a campaign to amend laws dealing with killing in the name of honour and other crimes inflicted on women.
Nilofar Bakhtiar, who pushed for legislation calling for perpetrators of so-called honour killings to be punished when she served as minister of women’s affairs, currently chairs the NCSW. She says, “I was the only federal minister and lawmaker of my party [PMLQ] who persuaded the ruling and opposition benches in 2004 to pass the ‘Anti Honour Killing’ bill and, now, as chairperson of the NCSW, I have initiated a campaign to get it and such other laws amended, to make them flaw free.”
It’s definitely a start and all such efforts are required. But changing mindsets in remote areas like Torghar and Kohistan will require much more than well-intentioned parliamentary interventions.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Mansehra.
Published in Dawn, EOS, August 7th, 2022
https://www.dawn.com/news/1703709/socie ... -tradition
Re: HONOR KILLINGS
Senior doctor kills teenage daughter, her friend for ‘honour’ in Karachi’s Gulshan-i-Iqbal
Imtiaz Ali Published August 25, 2023 Updated a day ago
A senior doctor fatally shot his teenage daughter and her friend “in the name of honour” near Karachi’s Gulshan-i-Iqbal area on Friday, police said.
East-SSP Zubair Nazeer Shaikh told Dawn.com that the suspect was associated with Sindh Government Qatar Hospital in Orangi.
Shaikh said the girl’s father, identified as Rafiq Shaikh, holds an MBBS qualification and serves as the chief medical officer at the government-run hospital.
He said that the victims were inside a car when the girl’s father began firing indiscriminately at the girl and her friend.
Preliminary investigations indicated the double homicide was linked to “honour”, the senior official added.
The bodies were moved to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for necessary legal procedures.
According to police surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed, the girl sustained four gunshot wounds, while the male victim suffered eight bullet injuries.
Meanwhile, a statement issued by the Sachal police said the girl was identified as Laraib, aged between 16 and 17, and her male companion was identified as 35-year-old Ahsan Waqar.
The incident occurred at Bakhar Goth, near Chapal Plaza, it added.
In a similar incident in May this year, a young woman was allegedly shot dead by her brother for “honour” in Phase VI of Karachi’s Defence Housing Authority (DHA).
The suspect had told the police that his sister had “illicit relations” with a person because of whom he shot her.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1772157/senio ... an-i-iqbal
Imtiaz Ali Published August 25, 2023 Updated a day ago
A senior doctor fatally shot his teenage daughter and her friend “in the name of honour” near Karachi’s Gulshan-i-Iqbal area on Friday, police said.
East-SSP Zubair Nazeer Shaikh told Dawn.com that the suspect was associated with Sindh Government Qatar Hospital in Orangi.
Shaikh said the girl’s father, identified as Rafiq Shaikh, holds an MBBS qualification and serves as the chief medical officer at the government-run hospital.
He said that the victims were inside a car when the girl’s father began firing indiscriminately at the girl and her friend.
Preliminary investigations indicated the double homicide was linked to “honour”, the senior official added.
The bodies were moved to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for necessary legal procedures.
According to police surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed, the girl sustained four gunshot wounds, while the male victim suffered eight bullet injuries.
Meanwhile, a statement issued by the Sachal police said the girl was identified as Laraib, aged between 16 and 17, and her male companion was identified as 35-year-old Ahsan Waqar.
The incident occurred at Bakhar Goth, near Chapal Plaza, it added.
In a similar incident in May this year, a young woman was allegedly shot dead by her brother for “honour” in Phase VI of Karachi’s Defence Housing Authority (DHA).
The suspect had told the police that his sister had “illicit relations” with a person because of whom he shot her.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1772157/senio ... an-i-iqbal
Re: HONOR KILLINGS
The Iraqi YouTube star killed by her father
Gem O'Reilly - Digital reporter
Tue, September 5, 2023 at 6:28 PM CDT
Young, vibrant and bubbly, YouTuber Tiba al-Ali became a hit with her fun-loving videos about her life.
She started her channel after moving from her native Iraq to Turkey at the age of 17 in 2017, talking about her independence, her fiancé, make-up and other things. Tiba appeared happy and attracted tens of thousands of subscribers.
This January she went back to Iraq to visit her family - and was murdered by her father. However, the killing was not considered to have been "pre-meditated" and her father was sentenced to only six months in prison.
Tiba's death sparked protests across Iraq about its laws regarding so-called "honour killings", the case highlighting how women are treated in a country where conservative attitudes remain dominant.
'Strangled in her sleep'
Tiba built an online following of more than 20,000 subscribers - a figure which has swelled since her death.
She posted videos daily and enjoyed the new lifestyle Turkey had opened up for her.
In her first video in November 2021, Tiba said she moved to improve her education, but chose to stay because she enjoyed life there.
According to reports, her father, Tayyip Ali, did not agree with her decision to move there - nor to marry her Syrian-born fiancé, with whom she lived in Istanbul.
It is believed Tiba became involved in a family dispute when she returned to Iraq to visit her home in Diwaniya in January.
Reports say Tayyip Ali strangled her to death in her sleep on 31 January. He later turned himself into the police.
A member of the local government where Tiba was killed said her father was sentenced in April to the short prison term.
In the wake of Tiba's murder, hundreds of women took to the streets in Iraq to protest against legislation around "honour killings".
The Iraqi Penal Code permits "honour" as a mitigation for crimes of violence committed against family members, according to Home Office analysis.
The Code allows for lenient punishments for "honour killings" on the grounds of provocation or if the accused had "honourable motives".
Iraq's interior ministry spokesman, Gen Saad Maan, told the BBC: "An accident happened to Tiba al-Ali. In the perspective of law, it is a criminal accident, and in other perspectives, it is an accident of honour killings."
Gen Maan said Tiba and her father had a heated argument during her stay in Iraq.
He also explained that the day before her murder, police had attempted to intervene.
When asked about the response of authorities to the killing, Gen Maan said: "Security forces dealt with the case with the highest standards of professionalism and applied the law.
"They started a preliminary and judicial investigation, gathered all the evidence and referred the file to the judiciary to pass a sentence."
'Rooted in misogyny'
Tiba's killing, and the lenient sentence handed to her father, sparked outrage among Iraqi women and women's rights activists across the world about the lack of protection from domestic violence for women and girls under Iraqi law.
For instance, in Article 41 of Iraq's penal code the "punishment of a wife by her husband" and "the disciplining by parents... of children under their authority within certain limits" are considered legal rights.
Article 409 meanwhile states: "Any person who surprises his wife in the act of adultery or finds his girlfriend in bed with her lover and kills them immediately or one of them, or assaults one of them so that he or she dies or is left permanently disabled, is punishable by a period of detention not exceeding three years."
Female rights activist, Dr Leyla Hussein told the BBC: "These killings are often rooted in misogyny and a desire to control women's bodies and behaviour.
"Using the term "honour killing" can be harmful to the victims and their families," she said. "It reinforces the idea that they are somehow responsible for their own deaths, that they brought it upon themselves by doing something wrong or shameful."
The UN has estimatedthat 5,000 women and girls across the world are murdered by family members each year in "honour killings".
'This must stop'
Five days after Tiba's death, Iraqi security forces prevented 20 activists from demonstrating outside the Supreme Judicial Council in Baghdad.
They held placards saying "Stop killing women" and "Stop [article] 409", and chanted: "There is no honour in the crime of killing women."
Ruaa Khalaf, an Iraqi activist and human rights defender, said: "Iraqi law greatly needs to be improved, amended and harmonised with international conventions."
Ms Khalaf said the sentence handed to Tiba's father was "unfair", and that she saw such cases as evidence of "provisions and legislations that violate women's rights".
Hanan Abdelkhaleq, an Iraqi advocate for women's rights, said: "They need to find a solution. This must stop. Killing women has become too simple.
"Strangling, stabbing. It has become easy. We hope that the law will stop article 409, cancel it."
Other female activists on social media also noted that Tiba's killing was not an isolated incident and that many "honour killings" went unreported.
The murder has sparked conversations about tougher laws to protect women in the country and beyond.
Ala Talabani, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan's bloc in the Iraqi parliament, said: "Women in our societies are hostage to backward customs due to the absence of legal deterrents and government measures, which currently are not commensurate with the size of domestic violence crimes."
She called on fellow MPs to pass the draft Anti-Domestic Violence Law, which explicitly safeguards family members from acts of violence, including homicides and severe physical harm.
The United Nations Mission in Iraq said Tiba's "abhorrent killing" was a "regretful reminder of the violence and injustice that still exists against women and girls in Iraq today".
It also called on the Iraqi government to "support laws and policies to prevent violence against women and girls, take all necessary measures to address impunity by ensuring that all perpetrators of such crimes are brought to justice and the rights of women and girls are protected".
For many, Tiba's story has put the spotlight on outdated laws failing to protect women from harm and gender-based violence across the world.
But for others she is just another example of what is often covered up and the thousands before her who never had their story told.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/finance ... 38942.html
Gem O'Reilly - Digital reporter
Tue, September 5, 2023 at 6:28 PM CDT
Young, vibrant and bubbly, YouTuber Tiba al-Ali became a hit with her fun-loving videos about her life.
She started her channel after moving from her native Iraq to Turkey at the age of 17 in 2017, talking about her independence, her fiancé, make-up and other things. Tiba appeared happy and attracted tens of thousands of subscribers.
This January she went back to Iraq to visit her family - and was murdered by her father. However, the killing was not considered to have been "pre-meditated" and her father was sentenced to only six months in prison.
Tiba's death sparked protests across Iraq about its laws regarding so-called "honour killings", the case highlighting how women are treated in a country where conservative attitudes remain dominant.
'Strangled in her sleep'
Tiba built an online following of more than 20,000 subscribers - a figure which has swelled since her death.
She posted videos daily and enjoyed the new lifestyle Turkey had opened up for her.
In her first video in November 2021, Tiba said she moved to improve her education, but chose to stay because she enjoyed life there.
According to reports, her father, Tayyip Ali, did not agree with her decision to move there - nor to marry her Syrian-born fiancé, with whom she lived in Istanbul.
It is believed Tiba became involved in a family dispute when she returned to Iraq to visit her home in Diwaniya in January.
Reports say Tayyip Ali strangled her to death in her sleep on 31 January. He later turned himself into the police.
A member of the local government where Tiba was killed said her father was sentenced in April to the short prison term.
In the wake of Tiba's murder, hundreds of women took to the streets in Iraq to protest against legislation around "honour killings".
The Iraqi Penal Code permits "honour" as a mitigation for crimes of violence committed against family members, according to Home Office analysis.
The Code allows for lenient punishments for "honour killings" on the grounds of provocation or if the accused had "honourable motives".
Iraq's interior ministry spokesman, Gen Saad Maan, told the BBC: "An accident happened to Tiba al-Ali. In the perspective of law, it is a criminal accident, and in other perspectives, it is an accident of honour killings."
Gen Maan said Tiba and her father had a heated argument during her stay in Iraq.
He also explained that the day before her murder, police had attempted to intervene.
When asked about the response of authorities to the killing, Gen Maan said: "Security forces dealt with the case with the highest standards of professionalism and applied the law.
"They started a preliminary and judicial investigation, gathered all the evidence and referred the file to the judiciary to pass a sentence."
'Rooted in misogyny'
Tiba's killing, and the lenient sentence handed to her father, sparked outrage among Iraqi women and women's rights activists across the world about the lack of protection from domestic violence for women and girls under Iraqi law.
For instance, in Article 41 of Iraq's penal code the "punishment of a wife by her husband" and "the disciplining by parents... of children under their authority within certain limits" are considered legal rights.
Article 409 meanwhile states: "Any person who surprises his wife in the act of adultery or finds his girlfriend in bed with her lover and kills them immediately or one of them, or assaults one of them so that he or she dies or is left permanently disabled, is punishable by a period of detention not exceeding three years."
Female rights activist, Dr Leyla Hussein told the BBC: "These killings are often rooted in misogyny and a desire to control women's bodies and behaviour.
"Using the term "honour killing" can be harmful to the victims and their families," she said. "It reinforces the idea that they are somehow responsible for their own deaths, that they brought it upon themselves by doing something wrong or shameful."
The UN has estimatedthat 5,000 women and girls across the world are murdered by family members each year in "honour killings".
'This must stop'
Five days after Tiba's death, Iraqi security forces prevented 20 activists from demonstrating outside the Supreme Judicial Council in Baghdad.
They held placards saying "Stop killing women" and "Stop [article] 409", and chanted: "There is no honour in the crime of killing women."
Ruaa Khalaf, an Iraqi activist and human rights defender, said: "Iraqi law greatly needs to be improved, amended and harmonised with international conventions."
Ms Khalaf said the sentence handed to Tiba's father was "unfair", and that she saw such cases as evidence of "provisions and legislations that violate women's rights".
Hanan Abdelkhaleq, an Iraqi advocate for women's rights, said: "They need to find a solution. This must stop. Killing women has become too simple.
"Strangling, stabbing. It has become easy. We hope that the law will stop article 409, cancel it."
Other female activists on social media also noted that Tiba's killing was not an isolated incident and that many "honour killings" went unreported.
The murder has sparked conversations about tougher laws to protect women in the country and beyond.
Ala Talabani, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan's bloc in the Iraqi parliament, said: "Women in our societies are hostage to backward customs due to the absence of legal deterrents and government measures, which currently are not commensurate with the size of domestic violence crimes."
She called on fellow MPs to pass the draft Anti-Domestic Violence Law, which explicitly safeguards family members from acts of violence, including homicides and severe physical harm.
The United Nations Mission in Iraq said Tiba's "abhorrent killing" was a "regretful reminder of the violence and injustice that still exists against women and girls in Iraq today".
It also called on the Iraqi government to "support laws and policies to prevent violence against women and girls, take all necessary measures to address impunity by ensuring that all perpetrators of such crimes are brought to justice and the rights of women and girls are protected".
For many, Tiba's story has put the spotlight on outdated laws failing to protect women from harm and gender-based violence across the world.
But for others she is just another example of what is often covered up and the thousands before her who never had their story told.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/finance ... 38942.html
Re: HONOR KILLINGS
Karachi woman axed to death in name of ‘honour’
The Newspaper's Staff Reporter Published July 28, 2024 Updated about 19 hours ago
KARACHI: A young woman was allegedly axed to death in the name of honour by her maternal grandfather in Marfani Goth within the remit of the Awami Colony police station on Saturday evening, police said.
Korangi-SSP Tauheed Rehman Memon said that Shahzadi, 20, was killed by her grandfather Mohammed Sharif inside their home near Bagh-i-Korangi.
The Awami Colony police claimed to have arrested the suspect and recovered the axe.
He informed the police that she had married of her own free will in Jamshoro a year ago. The suspect brought her back home, where he allegedly killed her.
“The police are treating it as a case of killing in the name of so-called honour,” Memon said.
The body has been shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for a post-mortem examination.
Earlier this week, a free-will couple was shot dead in the Manghopir area in the name of so-called honour. The police had said that relatives of Saira Luqman had allegedly killed her and her husband, Adil, in the Amir Mohammad Goth home. The family of the deceased man had refused to lodge an FIR of the murder and the police had registered a murder case on behalf of the state.
Meanwhile, a widow seeking a third marriage was shot dead allegedly by her brother in Bahadurabad late on Friday night.
SSP-East Dr Farrukh Raza said suspect Munir Shaikh shot dead his 45-year-old sister Waheeda over a domestic dispute inside their home in Dhoraji Colony and fled.
Area SHO Mohammed Naeem Rajput said that the victim was a widow and she had eight children from her previous two husbands. She wanted to get married for the third time, but her family was against it.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), honour killings remain a severe and persistent issue in the country.
In 2022, the HRCP recorded 520 incidents of honour killing, with 197 men and 323 women among the victims. In 2023, at least 226 women reportedly became victims of honour crimes.
Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2024
https://www.dawn.com/news/1848369/karac ... -of-honour
The Newspaper's Staff Reporter Published July 28, 2024 Updated about 19 hours ago
KARACHI: A young woman was allegedly axed to death in the name of honour by her maternal grandfather in Marfani Goth within the remit of the Awami Colony police station on Saturday evening, police said.
Korangi-SSP Tauheed Rehman Memon said that Shahzadi, 20, was killed by her grandfather Mohammed Sharif inside their home near Bagh-i-Korangi.
The Awami Colony police claimed to have arrested the suspect and recovered the axe.
He informed the police that she had married of her own free will in Jamshoro a year ago. The suspect brought her back home, where he allegedly killed her.
“The police are treating it as a case of killing in the name of so-called honour,” Memon said.
The body has been shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for a post-mortem examination.
Earlier this week, a free-will couple was shot dead in the Manghopir area in the name of so-called honour. The police had said that relatives of Saira Luqman had allegedly killed her and her husband, Adil, in the Amir Mohammad Goth home. The family of the deceased man had refused to lodge an FIR of the murder and the police had registered a murder case on behalf of the state.
Meanwhile, a widow seeking a third marriage was shot dead allegedly by her brother in Bahadurabad late on Friday night.
SSP-East Dr Farrukh Raza said suspect Munir Shaikh shot dead his 45-year-old sister Waheeda over a domestic dispute inside their home in Dhoraji Colony and fled.
Area SHO Mohammed Naeem Rajput said that the victim was a widow and she had eight children from her previous two husbands. She wanted to get married for the third time, but her family was against it.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), honour killings remain a severe and persistent issue in the country.
In 2022, the HRCP recorded 520 incidents of honour killing, with 197 men and 323 women among the victims. In 2023, at least 226 women reportedly became victims of honour crimes.
Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2024
https://www.dawn.com/news/1848369/karac ... -of-honour