Zeenews Bureau
Islamabad: The five Kohistani women, including an ``accomplice``, who were sentenced to death by a jirga for singing and dancing with men during a marriage ceremony, were not produced before the Supreme Court of Pakistan on Thursday.
During Wednesday`s hearing, the two men who were also condemned by the same group of tribal elders for merry making at the wedding party told the Supreme Court that the five co-accused Kohistani women were already dead, reports The News.
On the other hand, the police informed the court on Wednesday that the girls were alive and would be produced before the court.
Earlier, the chief secretary of the province had told the Supreme Court that the girls were alive, and a helicopter had been sent to produce them before the court.
During today’s proceedings, he informed the court that three helicopters had been sent to bring the girls to the Supreme Court; however, contact had been lost with the helicopters.
In the meantime, human rights activist, Farzana Bari, said from Kohistan that there was evidence of all five girls being alive.
A tribal jirga in a Kohistan village convicted four girls and two men after they were allegedly caught on video singing and dancing together at a wedding party in defiance of tribal customs in Kohistan. A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhamamd Chaudhry, heard a suo moto case regarding the video scandal and death decree issued to six people by some clerics of Kohistan.
The two accused men, Bin Yasir and Gul Nazar, were produced before the court and claimed that five girls, four of whom were visible in the video, had already been killed on the orders of the Jirga. However, the local police and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government continue to deny that the incident took place.
The brother of the two accused men, Afzal Khan, said he was sure that the five women had been killed on May 30 on the orders of tribal elders while he, along with his brothers, would also be murdered.
Afzal Khan said that the police couldn`t be trusted, as they had received threats from the DIG and commissioner of Hazara Division.
(With ANI inputs)
