Pakistan To Investigate Five ‘Honor Killings’
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan opened an investigation yesterday into the killings of five women who tried to choose their own husbands, after a provincial lawmaker defended their deaths as a “centuries-old tradition.”
The women, three of whom were teenagers, were shot, thrown into a ditch, and buried alive more than a month ago in what authorities have said they suspect were “honor killings.” Authorities say they have arrested three relatives of the women in connection with their deaths. It is considered an insult in some conservative regions of Pakistan for women to have affairs or marry without consent, and rights groups say hundreds are killed by male relatives every year.
The killings was raised in Parliament on Friday, prompting a lawmaker from Baluchistan province to claim that “only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid.”
