Honour crime: Two women killed over suspicion, defiance

18-year-old Nusrat ‘killed after she was caught with a cousin’; Shazia killed for marrying against parents’ wishes.

RAHIM YAR KHAN:

Two women were killed in two incidents of honour killings in Mianwali Qureshian and Ahmedpur Lama.

An FIR was lodged into the Ahmedpur Lama incident accusing seven people of killing Shazia.

No investigation the killing of eighteen-year-old Nusrat Bibi in Mianwali Qureshian has been undertaken because her Dashti family told police that the girl had died from an electric shock.

Talking to The Express Tribune, a family member, however, said several eyewitnesses had told him that Nusrat was killed by her father, Abdul Majeed, his brothers and nephews in their presence. He said the girl and her cousin, Zulfiqar, were declared karo kari after some relatives caught them together in a field on Tuesday morning.

He said the two were produced before the family by Nusrat’s cousins, Sajjad Dashti and Imtiaz Dashti. “Nusrat was tied to a charpoy. Her father used an uninsulated wire to give her electric shocks,” he said.

“They said the girl’s mother begged the men to spare her life,” he said. He said the women were expelled when they resisted the move to kill the girl.

Meanwhile, he said, Zulfiqar managed to escape. “They had beaten him up and believing him dead had dumped the ‘body’ in an empty plot,” he said. He said Zulfiqar had only fainted. “They found out about his escape when they went over later having decided to bury him after they had buried the girl,” he said.

Abadpur police station house officer Khalid Mahmood said the police had received no complaint. He said the family claimed that the girl had died from an electric shock accidently.

“The only way to ascertain whether or not she was killed after torture was to dig up the grave and send the body for an autopsy,” the SHO said. He said a court order was required to exhume the body.

Seven people were nominated in an FIR into the killing of Shazia in Ahmedpur Lama.

They included brothers of the deceased, Muhammad Aslam and Muhammad Akram. Others were Shabbir Ahmed and Yar Muhammad. According to the FIR, Hafeez Ahmed, a resident of Kot Mehtab, had sent her wife, Shazia, over to visit her parents on Tuesday after some influential people came over and requested him to let the parents meet her once. He said he had married Shazia in a court a month ago against the wishes of her family.

On Tuesday, the complainant said, he was called by Shazia’s neighbours to inform him about the killing an hour after he had dropped her at her parents’ house in Muhammad Nawaz Wasaya area.

SI Muzaffar Shah said investigations were underway but none of the accused had so far been held for questioning. He said the body had been handed over to Hafeez and not to girl’s parents.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 1^st, 2011.