Lawlessness prevails: Six of a family killed in ‘honour killing’

Those killed include three sisters, one-year-old girl.

YAR HUSSAIN: Six people of a family, including four women, were killed in Swabi district on Tuesday, in what officials said could be a case of honour killing.

The incident took place in the village of Sard Cheena.

Two teenaged sisters, Shamia and Khalida, told Yar Hussain police that three armed men broke into their house in Mera Bakakhel while their family was asleep. The men opened fire and killed their parents, three sisters and one-year-old niece.

SHO Qazi Asmat said that the sisters have accused three brother-in-laws for the crime. Asmat said that initial investigation revealed that the women Naseem Bibi, her one-year-old daughter Raina, Anjuman Bibi and Naqraz Bibi had separated from their husbands and were living with their parents.

“The family was living in a two-room house with no boundary wall or gate. The girls who remained unharmed were in another room,” said the police official, adding that the women had asked their husbands for a divorce. According to the sisters, the family had been living in isolation for the last 10 years.

The official added that the bodies were taken to the rural health centre in Yar Hussain, but because of a lack of proper medical facilities they were shifted to the district headquarters hospital for an autopsy.

The bodies will be handed over to the remaining family members for burial, he added. A search for the accused is underway with the help of police from other districts, who have already started conducting raids to apprehend the three men.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 26^th, 2012.