Above and beyond the law

Man who has killed at least 14 people is beyond the law as the Pakistan Penal Code does not extend to tribal areas

Incredible as it may seem it is possible in Pakistan to commit multiple murders and yet remain beyond the reach of the law or any form of punishment. Or perhaps, not so incredible when one considers the legal anomalies and inconsistencies that abound in the legal system. A man has killed 10 members of a family in Charsadda district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. He and his accomplices — he was not acting alone — slaughtered his uncle in the small hours of the night along with his wife, their four daughters and four sons. The reasons for the bloodbath are given as a refusal by the culprit’s (Gul Ahmed) uncle to marry his daughter to Gul Ahmed. The culprit has now fled to the tribal areas where he remains, far beyond the reach of any law or retribution for his crimes. He had already murdered his own father, mother and two brothers in late November last year as a part of the same dispute.

A man who has now killed at least 14 people is beyond the law because the Pakistan Penal Code does not extend to the tribal areas and the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) do not have a clause that covers the circumstances of the case. The case is not unusual, only the numbers dead are higher than is ‘usual’. There will be many who entirely understand why Gul Ahmed became a mass murderer, and will see every justification for his crimes in their understanding of ‘honour’ as a cultural code.

Such crimes are not limited to lawless areas, and a search of the newspapers on any given day will throw up at least one incident in which a spurned man killed either the woman who refused him or members of her extended family. The culture of impunity is reinforced by the law-enforcement agencies that are rarely willing to register a case, deeming these murders a ‘family matter’ and, therefore, none of their business. This pernicious mindset needs to change, because murder is murder, culture or not.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 7^th,  2015.

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