Islamabad: Referring to the incident of a tribal jirga in Kohistan sentencing four women to death for merry making at a wedding, an editorial in a Pakistan daily has questioned as to why such barbarity continues in Pakistan, adding that the country is becoming more backward than civilized.
According to news from Pakistan`s Kohistan district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP), four women and one accomplice may have been killed after being captured on video dancing with men, who are not related to them, at a wedding.
But an informant, who first broke the news of a jirga verdict against the women and two men, ordering that they be punished, now says five women have in fact been killed by their own families.
The police also claimed the video was circulated mischievously and that the person behind this act is being tracked down. This all has eventually forced the Supreme Court to step in with the local police chief ordered to present all the women under threat in court on June 6.
The editorial questions as to why have officials not been able to place the women in a safe environment as suggested by NGOs? Why do jirgas continue to mete out sentences that defy humanity and shock people the world over?
It states that the country needs to ascertain what the fate of those five unfortunate women has been. But even more crucially, we need to find some way to put an end to such incidents and prevent more from occurring, it added.
The authorities in Kohistan district must take stronger notice of what happened and ensure that the culprits are apprehended and punished. Also awareness needs to be spread on such issues to prevent further such incidents, it concluded.
PTI
