The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) registered at least 405 honor killings across the country by 2024. Most victims are women often killed by relatives who claim to defend the family’s honor.
While hundreds of so -called honorary killings are reported in Pakistan every year, often with a little public or legal reaction, the video of a woman and man who is led to a remote area of a group of men to be killed has hit a nerve.
A viral video of the “honor killing” of a woman and man in Balochistan has ignited national indignation, which has led to the control of many years of tribal codes and calls for justice in a country where such killings often go into silence.
Authorities have made at least 16 arrests in the case so far.
The video shows the woman, Bano Bibi, and gets a copy of the Holy Qur’an of a man identified by police as her brother. “Come go seven steps with me after that you can shoot me,” she says, and she goes forward a few meters and stops with her back to the men.
The brother, Jalal Satakzai, then shoots her three times and she collapses. Seconds later, he shoots and kills the man, Ehsanullah Samalani.
When the video of the killings in Balochistan became viral, it brought rapid government action and condemnation from politicians, rights groups and priests.
Civil Rights -Attorney Jibran Nasir said, but the government’s response was more about performance than justice.
“The crime took place months ago, not in secrecy, but near a provincial capital, but no one traded before 240 million witnessed the killing of the camera,” he said.
“This is not an answer to a crime. It’s a response to a viral moment.”
Read: Brutal ‘Honor Killing’ caught on video -gnister nationwide indignation
Police have arrested 16 people in Balochistan’s Nasirabad district, including a tribal manager and the woman’s mother.
The mother, Yellow Jan Bibi, said the killings were performed by family and local elders based on “centuries-old Baloch traditions” and not on orders from the tribal just.
“We did not commit any sin,” she said in a video statement that also became viral. “Bano and Ehsan were killed according to our customs.”
She said her daughter, who had three sons and two daughters, had run away with Ehsan and returned after 25 days.
Bano and Ehsan were killed according to our customs
The victim’s mother
Police said Bano’s younger brother who shot the couple remains largely.
Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti said it was a “test” case and promised to settle the illegal tribal tribes operating outside the law.
Police had previously said that a Jirga, an informal tribal council that makes outdoor decisions, had ordered the killings.
#Justice forcouple
The video triggered online condemnation with hashtags such as #justiceforcoulle and #honourkilling trending.
Pakistan Disadvantage Council, a body of religious scholars, called the killings “non-Islamic” and called on terrorism against those involved.
Dozens of civil society members and rights activists arranged a protest Saturday in the provincial capital of Quetta, which demanded justice and an end to parallel legal systems.
“Virality is a double -edged sword,” said Arsalan Khan, a cultural anthropologist and professor who studies gender and masculinity.
“It can push the state into action, but the public sight can also serve as a strategy to restore Ghairat or perceived family honor in the eyes of society.”
The government banned honor killings in 2016 following the murder of social media star Qandeel Baloch and closed a loophole that allowed perpetrators to go free if they were pardoned by family members. Rights groups say that enforcement remains weak, especially in rural areas where the tribal government is still swaying.
“In a country where the conviction rates often fall into single digits, visibility – and the rebellion it brings – has its benefits,” said Constitutional Attorney Asad Rahim Khan.
Read more: Three killed in honor -related incident in Bajaur
“It shakes a complacent state that continues to tolerate Jirgas in areas outside its writing.”
Khan said rather than enforcing the law that the government has spent the last year weakening the judiciary and even considering reviving Jirgas in former tribal areas.
“It’s a performing inaction, most shameful to women in Balochistan,” Khan said.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has asked the Senior Ministry in recent months to evaluate proposals to revive Jirgas in Pakistan’s former tribal districts, including potential engagement with the tribe’s oldest and Afghan authorities.
The Prime Minister’s Office and Pakistan’s Minister of Information did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Viral and then forget?
The Balochistan killings were bred in the Senate, where the Human Rights Committee condemned the murders and called for action against those who called Jirga. Legislators also warned that impunity for parallel legal systems risked encouraging similar violence.
However, activists and analysts say the outrage is unlikely to be maintained.
“There is noise now, but which every time fades it,” said Jalila Haider, a human rights lawyer in Quetta.
“In many areas there is no legal writing, no enforcement. Only silence.”
Haider said the killings emphasize the state’s failure to protect citizens in under -controlled regions such as Balochistan, where tribal power structures fill the vacuum left by absent courts and police.
“It’s not enough to just condemn Jirgas,” Haider said.
“The real question is: Why does the state allow them to exist in the first place?”
