We need a strong, vocal stance against honour killings. DESIGN: FAIZAN DAWOOD
Yes, in our Pakistani culture, we might find a 15-year-old girl sitting in the late hours of the night with a 20-year-old boy to be scandalous. However, this does not, under any circumstances, warrant murder. While the father’s conscience caught up with him as he turned himself to the police, two innocent lives are gone forever — conscience or no conscience. Even though the man, Abdur Rauf Khattak, is behind bars facing murder charges, this idea of killing for the sake of ‘honour’ continues its stranglehold on the minds of certain people in the country. Kin or not, killing for ‘honour’ should be outright condemned.
And, though many people will condemn these murders silently, we need a strong, vocal stance against honour killings. These are the types of issues we should be loudly protesting on the street. Stronger punishment for those who attempt to take the law into their own hands and commit such murders would set an example to others who would consider doing the same in hopes of keeping family ‘honour’. We desperately need to work towards eradicating these primitive and barbaric practices if we are ever to be a progressive land.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 30th, 2013.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
COMMENTS (2)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
This man Khattack should be hanged and before hanging him he should be told that after his death his wife and children (if he has any) would be destitute. However I doubt if he will be punished because the religious leaders will say that he did the right thing and he will be let go or lightly punished. Two young lives and their dreams however are gone forever. What a sick society we live in.
Well said! Keep on exposing such unacceptable behavior. Conflict management should be compulsory in all educational institutions. From the lowest level up.