In connection with the fatal shooting of a couple in the province of Balochistan, Pakistani authorities have detained at least 13 people, including a tribal leader.
Following widespread outcry over a video that featured the murders that went viral on social media, many people calling it yet another instance of “honor killing,” a custom that was reported from across South Asia.
The couple’s name is Bano Bibi and her husband Ehsan Ullah, according to the first information report (FIR) that the police filed on Monday. They were most likely killed in May near Quetta, Balochistan.
Honour killings, most frequently reported in Pakistan and India, result from alleged caste, tribal, or family dishonor, especially in love marriages, where the partners marry without the other person’s permission, their tribe, or elope. Many of these crimes are unreported.
Syed Suboor Agha, a police official from Balochistan, stated to Al Jazeera that they are looking into the incident and are likely to make more arrests, including Bano’s brother, who is wanted for killing his brother and is “still at large.”
A group of armed men are seen gathered around vehicles in a deserted area in the viral videos of the killings. The crowd orders Bano to keep his distance from the cars as the couple is shot multiple times, even on their motionless bodies strewn on the sand.
The FIR lists 15 additional unidentified suspects who were involved in the incident in addition to the eight suspects.
The couple’s attorney, Sardar Sherbaz Khan, allegedly brought them before the local tribal leader, who found them guilty of having an “immoral relationship” and gave the order to have them killed.
The “tyranny of medieval customs”
Regarding “honor killings” and other forms of violence against women, Pakistan has a bad record.
More than 32, 000 cases of gender-based violence were reported across the country in 2024, including 547 “honor killings,” 32 of which occurred in Balochistan and one of which resulted in conviction, according to Sustainable Social Development Organization (SSDO), an independent organization based in Islamabad.
The killings in the name of honor are a confirmation of the “tyranny of medieval practices” that are still prevalent in many parts of Pakistan, according to Harris Khalique, general secretary of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), the country’s leading rights organization.
The state protected tribal chiefs and feudal lords who maintain their dominance over local people and resources, Khalique claimed in an interview with Al Jazeera, instead of upholding the rule of law and guaranteeing the rights of its citizens.
Pakistan’s largest but least populous province, Balochistan, has also experienced decades of conflict between the government and ethnic Baloch separatists who want secession.
The killing of women has come to be “a matter of routine” in the province, according to rights activist Sammi Deen Baloch, who also supports a group dedicated to Baloch women’s rights.
Women are murdered for love, vanished for protest, and buried beneath tribal control and state-backed silence in Balochistan. These tragedies are not unique. They are the price of a system that makes Balochistan’s women impoverished and subservient, she claimed.
If the video hadn’t gone viral, Baloch claimed the government wouldn’t have taken action in the case of the murders.
“Baloch women are stranded between the oppressive practices of tribal patriarchy and state-imposed oppression. One kills quietly, and the other kills peacefully, she said.
Source: Aljazeera
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