Qandeel murder case

The Lahore High Court has acquitted the prime accused in the Qandeel Baloch murder case, setting aside the earlier decision of a trial court that awarded life imprisonment to him. Waseem Azeem is likely to be set free this week. Fouzia Waseem alias Qandeel Baloch shot to fame after she took to modelling and social media. She was allegedly strangled to death in July 2016. The woman’s life, for the most part, was tragic. Born into a poor family, she was married at an early age. She separated from her husband claiming he spanked and tortured her. Unable to support her only son, she reportedly handed him over to his father. Later, she took up modelling and made her presence felt on social media.

Qandeel soon shot to fame, but this does not go well with envious elements in society. She met a cruel end in July 2016 when she was in the prime of her life. Her premature death or alleged murder became one of the highly discussed cases of purported honour killing even receiving notice in the international media. Qandeel’s death raised the clamour for stricter laws to deter the increasing incidents of ‘honour killing’. This spurred the government into enacting a new law under which the state can overrule the pardon by victims’ heirs and become the prosecutor.

Initially her father lodged a murder case in which they named his son as the prime accused. In 2019, a model court in Multan convicted the accused, sentencing him to life imprisonment. The case went to the high court, where his parents sought his acquittal. Qandeel and the suspect’s father died recently. Whether the state files appeal against the acquittal or not, perhaps it will never be known who killed the young woman. Was it the societal mindset, or the growing intolerance and the ingrained habit of imposing one’s will on others? This regressive mentality has resulted in violent deaths of many a man and woman. It is time the authorities acted to prevent the society from sliding further into an abyss.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th, 2022.

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