The Sindh High Court’s order directing protection for Hassan Buriro and Sidra Channa will be remembered less as relief for one newly married couple than as an indictment of a social order in which consent can still invite collective punishment. The couple approached the court after contracting a marriage of their own choice. Their relatives, according to reports before the court, allegedly responded by setting more than 100 homes on fire in Siddique Arain village near Jacobabad. The court has done what the law required. The question is why the law had to be invoked so urgently for a right that should never have been in doubt.
Marriage by consent is not an act of rebellion. Under Pakistani law, an adult person is entitled to choose a spouse. Similarly, Islamic principles dictate that nikah cannot be reduced to a family bargain imposed without consent. Parents may counsel, and families may disagree, but neither custom nor kinship can override the law, much less license threats, abduction, arson or murder. This self-perpetuating confusion of control with honour remains one of the most lethal hypocrisies in our society.
The Jacobabad case is therefore larger than the couple at its centre; flashing a warning to every young woman, every young man and every poor household living under the shadow of local power that the price of choice may be paid by an entire community.
Pakistan has seen this pattern too often to pretend surprise. Human Rights Commission of Pakistan recorded at least 405 honour killings across the country in 2024; most of the victims were women killed by relatives invoking family honour. Last year, the gruesome killing of Bano Bibi and Ehsan Ullah Samalani in Balochistan caused national outrage after a video went viral and arrests followed, including that of a tribal chief.
What makes these crimes especially damning is the architecture around them, wherein male relatives act as the judge, jury, and executioner, often facing a police force that is hesitant and steeped in patriarchal norms. The state cannot keep rescuing couples one order at a time.
A more effective approach might begin with framing the Jacobabad arson incident as an act of collective violence rather than merely a family dispute. Those who plan, incite, or shelter such attacks should be held accountable.
Above all, the state must say clearly, in police stations and courtrooms alike, that an adult citizen is not family property. Until that principle is enforced, every marriage of choice will remain a test of whether law or patriarchy governs Pakistan. *