An 18-year-old girl has allegedly been killed by her own family after being sentenced to death by village elders for dancing with a boy in a video that went viral on social media in Pakistan.
The killing occurred on Sunday,
November 26, in the village of Barsharyal in Pakistan's mountainous Kohistan
region,
The incident is being
investigated by Pakistani police as a potential honour killing.
It was gathered that a friend
who also appeared in the video was sentenced to death as well but was rescued
by police before it could be carried out.
Masood Khan, deputy
superintendent of police in the Kolai-Palas district, said: 'They shot dead one
of them while police rescued the second one.
'We have launched an
investigation to trace those who killed the girl and who either advised or
convened a jirga (the village elders) and sentenced her to death.'
He added that nobody was above
the law and all those involved in the brutal killing would be brought to
justice at any cost.
The second girl, who was
rescued by the police due to the expected threats to her life, was returned
home with her father soon after, as a senior civil judge ruled that her life
was not in any danger.
The boys who appeared in the
videos have also gone into hiding, fearing reprisals.
Dr Farzana Bari, a human rights
activist told Geo.tv of her concern for the safety of the second girl.
She believed that she would
likely be murdered sooner or later and remains under serious threat, continuing
that 'she has probably been misguided by her family. Knowing the kind of
mindset that exists in the area, I think this girl would be killed.'
The caretaker chief minister of
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Syed Irshad Hussain Shah, said he had ordered
police to arrest those responsible.
'We are investigating,' Khan
said, adding that male relatives of the young woman were believed to be
involved in the killing, as public images of women are considered taboo in the
area.
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