Pakistan arrests 13 suspects as ‘honour killing' video goes viral
The arrests followed nationwide outrage over a video depicting the murders went viral on social media, with many calling it yet another case of 'honour killing' – a phenomenon reported from across South Asia.
The first information report (FIR) filed by the police on Monday identifies the couple as Bano Bibi and her husband Ehsan Ullah, and says they were likely killed in May near Balochistan's capital Quetta.
Honour killings, mainly reported from Pakistan and India, often arise from perceived family, tribal or caste dishonour, especially in love marriages, in which the two partners marry without the consent of their families or tribe, or elope. Many such killings go unreported.
Balochistan police official Syed Suboor Agha told Al Jazeera they are investigating the matter and are likely to make more arrests, including Bano's brother, who is suspected of the murders and 'is still at large'.
The viral videos of the killings show a group of armed men gathered around vehicles in a deserted area. Bano is ordered by the crowd to stand away from the vehicles as the couple is pumped with bullets, even on their motionless bodies lying bleeding on the sand.
The FIR names eight suspects while also listing 15 other unidentified suspects involved in the incident.
According to the FIR, the couple was allegedly brought before local tribal leader Sardar Sherbaz Khan, who declared them guilty of engaging in an 'immoral relationship' and ordered that they be killed.
'Tyranny of medieval practices'
Pakistan has a dismal record on 'honour killings' and other forms of violence against women.
According to Sustainable Social Development Organisation (SSDO), an Islamabad-based independent organisation, more than 32,000 cases of gender-based violence were reported nationwide in 2024, including 547 instances of 'honour killings' – 32 of them in Balochistan and only one resulting in conviction.
Harris Khalique, general secretary of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), the country's leading rights watchdog, said the killings in the name of honour confirm the 'tyranny of medieval practices' still entrenched in many parts of Pakistan.
'The state, instead of establishing the rule of law and ensure the right to life of its citizens, has protected the tribal chiefs and feudal lords who guard such practices to perpetuate their power over local people and resources,' Khalique told Al Jazeera.
Mineral-rich Balochistan, Pakistan's largest but least populous province, has also witnessed decades of conflict between the government and ethnic Baloch separatists, who demand secession from the country.
Rights activist Sammi Deen Baloch, also a member of a Baloch women's rights group, said killing of women has become 'a matter of routine' in the province.
'In Balochistan, women are murdered for love, disappeared for protest, and buried under layers of tribal authority and state-backed silence. These are not isolated tragedies. They are the cost of a system designed to keep Balochistan obedient, and its women expendable,' she told Al Jazeera.
Baloch said the government would not have acted on the murders had the video not gone viral.
'Baloch women are trapped between two forms of violence: the brutality of tribal patriarchy, and the cold repression of the state. One kills in silence, the other kills in the name of law,' she said.
'The state's refusal to democratise Balochistan isn't accidental. It is policy. By outsourcing governance to feudal strongmen, the state keeps the region controlled, its women disposable, and its dissent criminal.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
17 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
The Mom Who Fought a Cartel
A mother's determination to bring her daughter's killers to justice. Karen Rodríguez was kidnapped and murdered by one of Mexico's most feared cartels in 2014. Most families would have been forced into silence, but not hers. Refusing to give up, her mum, Miriam Rodríguez, launched her own relentless quest for justice. In a country where cartels operate with impunity, kidnappings are commonplace, and speaking out can get you killed, Miriam's fearless pursuit turned her into an unlikely hero—and a target. This is an extraordinary story of a mother's determination to bring her daughter's killers to justice and the high price she paid for defying the power of the cartels. In this episode: Ricardo Ravelo, journalist María Jaramillo Alanís, journalist
Al Jazeera
a day ago
- Al Jazeera
US man convicted in Palestinian-American boy hate crime murder dies in jail
A United States landlord who was jailed for decades for the horrific October 2023 stabbing death of a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy, and for critically injuring his mother, has died in prison. Joseph Czuba, 73, died on Thursday in the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on Saturday, citing the Will County Sheriff's Office. The law enforcement agency did not return a call seeking comment on the death. The murder of the boy, Wadee Alfayoumi, and the attack on his mother, Hanan Shaheen, was one of the earliest and worst hate crime incidents in the US since the start of Israel's war on Gaza. Three months ago, Czuba was sentenced to 53 years in prison for the attack. He was found guilty in February of murder, attempted murder and hate-crime charges for Alfayoumi's death and for wounding Shaheen. Czuba attacked them on October 14, 2023, because they were Muslims, and as a response to the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on southern Israel. Ahmed Rehab, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Chicago office, said in a statement on Saturday that 'this depraved killer has died, but the hate is still alive and well'. Evidence at trial included harrowing testimony from Shaheen and her frantic 911 call, along with bloody crime scene photos and a police video. Jurors deliberated for less than 90 minutes before handing in a verdict. The family had been renting rooms in Czuba's home in Plainfield, about 40 miles (64km) from Chicago, when the attack happened. Central to the prosecutors' case was harrowing testimony from the boy's mother, who said Czuba attacked her before moving on to her son, insisting they had to leave because they were Muslim. 'He told me: 'You, as a Muslim, must die,'' said Shaheen during her testimony. Czuba's ex-wife, Mary, also testified for the prosecution, saying he had become agitated about Israel's war on Gaza, which has now killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians. Police said Czuba pulled a knife from a holder on a belt and stabbed the boy 26 times. Some of the bloody crime scene photos were so explicit that the judge agreed to turn television screens showing them away from the audience, which included Wadee's relatives. The case generated headlines around the world and deeply struck the Chicago area's large and established Palestinian community amid rising hostility against Muslims and Palestinians in the US. Wadee's funeral drew large crowds, and Plainfield officials have dedicated a park playground in his honour. Other similarly-motivated incidents in the US include the attempted drowning of a three-year-old Palestinian-American girl in Texas, the stabbing of a Palestinian-American man in Texas, the beating of a Muslim man in New York, a violent mob attack on pro-Palestinian protesters in California and a Florida shooting of two Israeli visitors whom the suspect mistook for Palestinians. Three young Palestinian men were also shot near a university campus in Vermont just weeks after Alfayoumi was stabbed to death.
Al Jazeera
2 days ago
- Al Jazeera
Two teens jailed over machete murder of 14-year-old on London bus
Two British teenagers have been sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum term of 15 years, for stabbing to death a 14-year-old boy on a London bus in broad daylight earlier this year. Judge Mark Lucraft at London's Old Bailey court sentenced the pair, who cannot be named due to their age, to life in prison on Friday. He ordered that they be considered for parole after 15 years and 110 days in detention. The teenagers stabbed 14-year-old Kelyan Bokassa 27 times with machetes on the bus in the Woolwich area of southeast London on January 7. He later died from his injuries. The attackers – aged 16 and 15 at the time of the time of murder – were arrested later that month. The pair pleaded guilty to murder in May. The attack has reignited concern around youth gang violence and the ongoing problem of knife crime that has plagued the British capital and other cities in the United Kingdom for years. Across Britain, knife crime is up by nearly 80 percent since 2015. Last year, 10 teenagers were fatally stabbed in London alone, after 18 were killed in 2023, according to London's Metropolitan Police. In September last year, a 15-year-old boy – reportedly a close friend of Bokassa – was also stabbed to death in Woolwich, in what a prosecutor described as gang retaliation. In August last year, in another incident that sent shockwaves across Britain, a teenager carried out a deadly stabbing spree in the seaside town of Southport, which killed three young girls. Detective Chief Inspector Sarah Lee, whose team led the Met investigation into Bokassa's murder, said the 'harsh reality in London is that violence disproportionately affects young Black men and boys'. 'The fact we're seeing so many teenagers like Kelyan die should be at the forefront of the minds of every politician, every policymaker and everyone who wants better for children growing up in London,' she said. Judge Lucraft said one of the perpetrators was himself a 'victim of child criminal exploitation' by gangs, adding that he had faced 'a history of trauma'. He added that the second boy was also exploited by gangs from the age of 12 and experienced 'undiagnosed developmental needs'. 'It is sadly an all too frequent senseless loss of yet another young life to the horrors of knife crime', which 'no sentence of a court can ever truly reflect', Lucraft said. Shortly after the murder, Bokassa's mother, Marie Bokassa, told the press her son was also exploited by gangs in the Woolwich area of southeast London. Addressing the court on Friday, she asked: 'How can children behave like this?' 'What have the children been exposed to, to show such behaviour as this?'
