KARACHI: The police have arrested nine suspects involved in the murder of a woman and man in the name of honour on the orders of jirga council in the city’s Mominabad area on Monday.
SP Orangi Abid Baloch said that the young couple hailing from Kohistan was “honour-killed” about twelve days ago on the orders of an elders’ council. The bodies of the victims were recovered from the Qaimkhani graveyard in Ittehad Town as per news sources.
He said nine people who have confessed to the crime have been arrested in connection with the murder.
The unfortunate couple had married out of choice which offended their family members who wanted to kill them for bringing disgrace, the SP Orangi said.
He said the members of the girl and her fiance’s family were involved in their killing.
The local police grew suspicious when the couple residing within the jurisdiction of Mominabad police station went missing and blood stains were seen in their house by the locals.
Baloch said that police will exhume the bodies of the couple buried in the Ittihad Town graveyard for medico-legal formalities.
Earlier in September this year, a teenage couple who tried to elope were murdered with electric shocks in an act of “honour killing” by family members who were carrying out the orders of an influential tribal council.
The teenagers in the port city of Karachi were said by the Pashtun council of elders, or jirga, to have brought dishonour on the community.
“The innocent souls were tied to a charpai (rope bed) and given electric shocks,” said a police officer who arrested the two fathers and two uncles and is pursuing some 30 members of the jirga who have gone into hiding.
The 15-year-old girl had allegedly run away with her 17-year-old boyfriend last month, he said.
More than 500 people, mostly women, die in Pakistan each year in such killings, usually carried out by members of the victim’s family meting out punishment for bringing “shame” on the community.
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah took notice of the incident and expressed anger over the couple’s murder saying, “This is Karachi, not a tribal area. How was a jirga held here?”
CM Shah has directed the Inspector General (IG) of Police A.D. Khawaja to conduct a thorough investigation and present a detailed report of the incident as soon as possible.