Six men arrested for murdering couple on jirga’s orders

FIR registered on behalf of state after families refuse to lodge case

Police announced the arrest of six men on Thursday after lodging a case against them on behalf of the state for murdering a couple on orders of a jirga in Shah Latif Town.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Javed Akbar Riaz of the Malir district said Irfana, wife of Nizaam and daughter of Mehboob Khan, and Azmat, son of Zain Jalal, were strangled to death in a house in Shah Latif Town in the wee hours of Tuesday.

The murders are the latest so-called honour killings to hit the country, weeks after the federal government passed long-awaited legislation to combat the crime. Holding jirgas is illegal in Pakistan.

Sindh Inspector General of Police (IGP) A D Khowaja had taken notice of the ghastly incident, ordered an immediate inquiry led Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Arif Hanif of East Range and sought a report.

SSP Riaz said that during the course of the investigations, police were informed by a local that after a recent jirga in the area, the couple was killed and buried in a graveyard after funeral prayers.

Police launched a hunt and arrested the suspects, identified as Lal Qadir alias Tarbori, Saeed Nawaz, Sarfaraz, Umer Nawaz, Hidayatullah and Ishaq.

Irfana had married Nizaam a few years back. Later, she fell in love with Azmat and the two fled home more than a year ago. They changed residence several times to avoid being caught.

Their families kept searching them and succeeded in tracing them in the Banaras area in the West district, where they met them, assured them of shelter and asked them to return home. When the couple arrived in Shah Latif Town late on Monday night, they were taken to a jirga at the residence of Lal Qadir. The jirga declared the couple guilty and told their families to kill them.

SSP Riaz said Irfana and Azmat were strangled by their own family members, who then buried them in a graveyard after offering their funeral prayers. After no family member of the victims agreed to register an FIR, the police had registered a case on behalf of the state.

A letter was sent to the home department for the formation of a medical board consisting of a magistrate and medical legal officers for the exhumation of the bodies of the couple so that postmortem examinations could be conducted and further legal proceedings taken.

The exhumation of the bodies is expected in a day or two.

Around a thousand women fall victim to so-called honour killings in Pakistan each year -- in which the victim, normally a woman, is killed by a relative for bringing shame to the family.

Perpetrators have often walked free because of a legal loophole that allowed them to seek forgiveness for the crime from another family member, but earlier this month the government passed a law that mandates life imprisonment even if the attacker escapes capital punishment via a relative’s pardon.