A teenage girl was gunned down allegedly by her uncle on Monday in a ‘honour’ killing case in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Battagram district.
The incident comes a few days after the killing of a man and a woman in the Degari area of Quetta on the orders of a tribal jirga ahead of Eidul Azha for so-called ‘honour’. The police had subsequently arrested at least 14 suspects for their involvement in the incident.
According to Battagram police Public Relations Officer Ghulam Nabi, “The uncle of the victim allegedly gunned down his niece in the name of honour.”
A first information report (FIR) dated Aug 4, seen by Dawn.com, said that the incident occurred during the early hours of Monday.
In the FIR, the suspect confessed that he had been a guest at his brother’s house for two days. “My brother went outside at night and told me to take care of the house,” the FIR quoted him as saying.
He further said that he heard the sound of the gate of the house opening at around 2am, prompting him to wake up.
“Using a flashlight, I saw that my niece was at the gate and going out with three people.”
Upon seeing his niece leaving the house, he fired at the victim and the cartridge ran out, the FIR read.
The suspect said that the victim’s mother gave him a pistol, adding, “After chasing them, I deliberately fired at Zahida Bibi out of honour.”
The firing killed the girl and injured one boy, while the other two people fled the scene, the FIR said.
The police arrested the suspect and recovered the weapons used in the crime.
The case was registered at the Battagram city police station under Sections 302 (murder), 324 (attempt to murder) and 311 (Ta’zir after waiver or compounding of right of qisas in qatl-i-amd) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).
Last week, a couple was shot dead by the woman’s family over ‘honour’ in Balochistan’s Mastung district.
On July 26, a court in Rawalpindi remanded three suspects to police custody over an alleged murder and ‘honour’ killing case of a newlywed woman.
Police had initiated the investigation based on information that a woman had been murdered in the name of ‘honour’ in Pirwadhai, following a jirga in which members of both families participated.
As the woman’s family and in-laws became aware that the police were secretly investigating the incident, the deceased’s husband registered a case with the police under Section 496A. Police sources had said that the case was registered by the husband on the same day the woman was allegedly killed by suffocation with a pillow.
In Pakistan, ‘honour’ killings continued to claim the lives of women throughout 2024, perpetuated by deeply ingrained societal beliefs about family dignity and shame.
Data from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan shows that in 2024, ‘honour’ killings continued to be a serious issue across Pakistan, with particularly high figures in Sindh and Punjab. From January to November, a total of 346 people fell victim to ‘honour’ crimes in the country.
