At last, the verdict of the horrific case of the 2012 Kohistan video scandal -involving the murder of three girls – has been pronounced as a sessions’ court in Kolai-Palas Kohistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, handed down life imprisonment to three people. That comes at a heavy cost.
Convicts Mohammad Umar Khan, Saeer and Sabir, arrested last year, and that on the intervention of the Supreme Court and two fact-finding commissions’ reports, are relatives of the slain girls. Umer killed his sister Begum Jaan, and Saeer and Sabir their daughters Bazigha and Seerin Jan. In pursuit of gut-wrenching tribal traditions of honour, the three people killed their own womenfolk whose fault was to cheer a male dancer. This happened in May 2012, when a rough video went viral online where four women singing and clapping and two boys dancing can be seen. Later, a member of the public from the area, Afzal Kohistani, told media that the women seen in the video had been killed on the order of a Jirga.
Kohistani took it upon himself to bring the killers to book. This opened another chapter of bloodshed for Koshitani too. His three brothers were killed in Palas Kohistan. Afzal remained firm and kept his struggle on to get the killers of the women and his brothers punished. The community, however, shortened his long chase for justice and shot him dead in Abbottabad in March this year. The remaining family of the late Kohistani lives in hiding. One can imagine how long they will have to wait to get justice for the blood of four brothers, and bring their lives to normalcy.
The whole saga begs several questions, instead of offering answers.
Since 2012, when the video scandal went viral, what has the government done to stem such incidents in remote areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa?
Had it not been for the video, the shocking murders would have never been made public. Later, two commissions were formed and the Supreme Court ordered the launch of the first information report in 2018. What did the law-enforcement agencies do to unearth the gruesome murders? And what did the government do to question the role of law-enforcers, who seem complicit in hiding the murders and were stalling the case for so many years?
What will the justice system do with the cases of Kohistani and his three brothers? Well, after so many questions to the government, one question is for all of us: have we done enough to change the primitive mindset that supports honour killings? *