Kohistan ‘killings’: Second fact-finding mission returns with more questions than answers

Dr Farzana Bari expresses fear that the women she met might not be the ones who had been filmed.

The second fact-finding mission, set out to collect documentary evidence in the Kohistan ‘killing’ case, returned from Peech Bala area on Saturday after meeting the “condemned” girls.

Five Kohistani women had been allegedly sentenced to death, and later killed by a tribal jirga after a video was released in which they were seen singing at a wedding. The act defied age old tribal traditions.

The fact-finding mission, comprising four activists, reached the Peech Bala area on helicopters and met the women and tribal people on Saturday.

Dr Farzana Bari, a member of the mission, on her return from the trip expressed fear that the women the mission met might not be the ones who had been filmed. She added that she wanted the two boys, jailed for filming the video, to verify the pictures of the women but the police did not allow her to meet them.

She also stated that the collected evidence will only be presented to the Supreme Court.