When her real name and identity was revealed on the mainstream media, I had started to feel worried about her safety, and then it happened. Perhaps, sooner than expected, Qandeel Baloch was murdered. Not by anyone else, but by her own brother, and yet again in the name of honour. It was too insensitive of the media to expose private details of an individual in the race of ratings without realising the ramifications of its actions.
In a country, still ruled by patriarchal norms and strict religious interpretations, Qandeel Baloch was indeed a rebel. However, today, I will not focus on what Qandeel represented, as I feel many of us are talking about it already. My aim here is to throw some light on how the government has taken a commendable step by charging Qandeel’s brother with crimes against the state. The obvious aim here is to avoid the situation in case her father or other family members think about using Qisas or Diyat to pardon the killer. However, some of the criminal law experts in the country still think that this move by the government is not going to make much difference, as the wali in this case remains Qandeel’s father, who has all the right to forgive his son.
Irrespective of the outcome of this case, it is indeed a long-awaited step forward that the government has termed this case of “honour killing” as a crime against the state by inserting section 311 of the Pakistan Penal Code in the FIR. This step shows the willingness of the government to take honour killing related cases more seriously. Although, government used to take notice of the incidents that happened before this one, but this particular step has transformed the case into a high profile one.
However, I A Rehman is of the view that such steps have been taken before as well, but the real change will only come once parliament takes the bold step of approving the bill against honour killing that has been pending for far too long. I totally agree with Mr Rehman, as I feel that there is a lot of difference between an isolated decision and a law. If parliament takes the bold step of passing the pending bill then it can be expected that honour killing will be treated as a murder and a crime against the society, a crime that is sanctioned by conservatives and those hypocrites who think that killing a woman in the name of honour is justifiable.
Many experts believe that Qandeel case will change the way honour killing was treated in the country in the past. Due to strong patriarchal and conservative norms of our society, killing in the name of honour was always considered as justified. However, now things will change for good, but that greatly depends on the outcome of the case.
Another important and related matter in this case is Qandeel’s father’s statement in which he terms Qandeel as the sole breadwinner of the family. He also termed her as his son. This statement reflects a lot on the character of the young woman that we knew as Qandeel Baloch.’ Maybe she was an outcast, and a nonconformist for society, but despite having sons, for her father she was the only breadwinner. This defines the innate hypocrisy of our social system that shields a woman from going outside the four walls of her house, gives her bad names, and in some cases, kills her in the name of honour. However, the same society doesn’t do anything against the son or the brother who instead of fulfilling his responsibilities as a son by providing to the family considers killing his sister in the name of honour as a far more important duty/responsibility. Even in her death, Qandeel was described as a son rather than as a breadwinning daughter.
I firmly hope that this incident of honour killing doesn’t go down the drain like the many before it. I have a great deal of expectations from government, the police, and parliament, and I wish that this incident helps bring all of us together to decide once and for all that honour killing is nothing but murder and it can never be justified.
The writer is a development consultant. She tweets at @GulminaBilal and can be reached at [email protected]