Two women have been murdered by their brothers in Punjab in what are reported to be cases of ‘honor’ killing.
The first incident took place in village 51R of Okara district, where a model named Sidra was killed by her brother when she visited her hometown to celebrate the Eid-ul-Fitr.
According to a local news channel, the 22-year-old model was killed during a heated argument allegedly over her modeling career with her brother.
She worked as a model in Islamabad, and as per sources, her brother was unhappy with her profession.
Police have shifted the deceased’s body to the hospital for postmortem, while a case has been registered against the suspect.
They said Sidra’s brother fled the scene, and raids have been conducted to arrest him.
The second incident took place in Chichawatni, a rural area of the province, where a man killed his sister.
Police have registered a case and launched a probe and search operation to arrest the suspect.
The South Asian country remained in the limelight after the brutal murder of the 26-year-old social media star Qandeel Baloch who was strangled to death by her brother in 2016.
The case became the most high profile “honor killing” of recent years, where male relatives give women lethal punishment for purportedly bringing “shame” to a family’s reputation.
Baloch’s brother Waseem also confessed that he killed her because she allegedly “brought dishonour to the Baloch name” with her risque videos and statements posted on social media.
Muhammad Waseem was arrested and later sentenced to life in prison by a trial court. However, in February 2022, Waseem was acquitted based on an affidavit submitted by Baloch’s parents in 2019, pardoning her murderers.
Three months after Baloch’s murder, parliament passed new legislation mandating life imprisonment for honor killings.
Hundreds of women are murdered every year in Pakistan, often by their own relatives, for going against their families’ wishes in matters of love and marriage.
The perpetrators of so-called honor killings often walk free because they can seek forgiveness for the crime from another family member.
According to Saima Munir, who works for the Aurat Foundation, there was a 70 percent increase in honor killings in 2015.
Human Rights Watch claimed that violent attacks against women remained a serious problem in Pakistan, and more or less 1,000 such cases were reported across the country every year.
A short documentary, A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, by Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won an Oscar in 2016, highlighting the issue of honour killing in the country.