Sister, brother-in-law shot dead in Swabi for family honour

The pseudo tradition of protecting the family honour claimed two more lives as a man killed his sister and brother-in-law in Swabi, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Wednesday.

According to details, the double murder took place in the Yar Hussain. The victim, Faizullah, had contracted love marriage with the accused’s sister, Rehmat, six years ago.

But an interesting thing is the killer, Faisal, has been living at their house for the last three years, showing that the hatred created by these redundant values do not vanish with the passage of time.

Thus, Faisal on Tuesday night gunned down the couple and managed to flee the crime scene.

Amid the ever-rising number of such killings and the very low rate of convictions, the Supreme Court last week declared that the punishment prescribed in Section 302(c) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) could not be given in an honour killing case.

It also observed that the killing of women in the name of honour had never been an honourable practice, saying such murders should not be categorised as honour killings.

A two-member bench headed by Justice Faez Isa gave the verdict on a petition filed by Muhammad Abbas who was awarded the death sentence by a district court in Nankana for the murder of his wife, Saima, for alleged infidelity on May 17, 2009.

However, the Lahore High Court reduced his death sentence into life imprisonment through a verdict issued on September 8, 2015.

The court refused to grant leave to appeal for further reducing his sentence under Section 302(c) PPC wherein the punishment is less than the death sentence and life imprisonment.

"Pakistan has one of the highest, if not the highest per capita honour killings in the world and predominantly the victims are women,” the verdict read.

It regretted that not enough was being done to discourage crimes against women as extremism and violence have permeated through Pakistani society and it had been brutalised.

“By stating that murder was committed on the pretext of ghairat (honour) the murderer hopes to provide some justification for the crime. It may also elevate the murderer’s social status with those not familiar with what Almighty Allah Commands in the Holy Qur’an. This is unfortunate, more so because there is no honour in such killings.”