Islamabad > An angry Pakistani youth has allegedly shot dead his sister and her husband for marrying without the familys consent, in the latest incident of honour killing in the country, police said. The accused, identified as 19-year-old Saeed Anwar, had been upset at his sister, Mismat Musarrat, 18, for marrying Qaiser, 25.
The incident took place in Nagyal in Rawalpindis Gujjar Khan tehsil and police described it as an honour killing, Dawn newspaper reported. The Station House Officer Ishtiaq Masood Cheema said the suspect had been waiting for an opportunity to kill the couple ever since they married a few months ago without the consent of his family.
He said that when Anwar found the couple alone in their house, the accused fired at them with a pistol, killing them both on the spot. He later tried to flee the scene, but was apprehended by the police along with the murder weapon. Cheema said police have booked Anwar for a double murder. Police will present him in court tomorrow to seek physical remand. The bodies of the victims have been shifted to a local hospital for a postmortem.
Last month, a newly-wed couple in Sindh province who married without the consent of their elders were killed allegedly on the orders of a jirga (village elders). In September, police had exhumed bodies of a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy, who had reportedly been electrocuted by their families on the orders of a jirga in Karachi. Activists say around a thousand Pakistani women fall victims to so-called honour killings every year in which the victims, mostly a woman, are usually killed by a relative or on the orders of village elders for bringing dishonour to the family or the community.
