In rare move, Pakistan bars family from 'forgiving' son for honour killing

Brother of media star Qandeel Baloch will stand trial for her murder.

Pakistani police officers surround Waseem Azeem, the brother of murdered model and social media celebrity Qandeel Baloch, as he is arrested for her murder at a police station in Multan, Pakistan, on  July 17, 2016. Asim Tanveer / AP
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ISLAMABAD // Pakistani authorities have barred the family of a murdered social media celebrity from legally “forgiving” their son for strangling her, sources said, in a rare stand against the practice of so-called “honour killings”.

Muhammad Waseem drugged and strangled Qandeel Baloch on Friday in a murder that has shocked Pakistan, a deeply conservative nation where the 26-year-old both titillated and outraged with her risqué social media photos and videos.

Waseem told media he had “no regrets” about killing his sister as she violated the family’s honour with her social media pictures, including “selfie” photographs with prominent Muslim cleric Abdul Qavi. In a video post with Mr Qavi, she appears to sit on his lap.

A police source said the government of Punjab, the country’s largest province, has made it impossible for the family to forgive the son who murdered her – a common legal loophole that sees many honour killings go unpunished in Pakistan.

“It was done on the instructions of the government. But it happens rarely,” said the Punjab police official.

A senior government official in Islamabad confirmed the order came from the Punjab government.

More than 500 people, almost all of them women, die in honour killings in Pakistan every year, usually at the hands of relatives acting over a perception shame has been brought on the family.

In a rare case of a man falling victim to the practice, however, Pakistani police said on Tuesday that a man had been tortured to death for an affair with a married woman in the impoverished central district of Dera Ghazi Khan.

Allah Ditta, 24, was stabbed multiple times on Monday by a group of five men after they spotted him in the village of the woman he was allegedly having an affair with.

Ditta’s arms were cut off as were his lips and nose. The woman was not harmed.

It was not immediately clear if the Punjab government’s decision in the Baloch case would lead to any meaningful reforms. An anti-honour killings bill that aims to close the family forgiveness loophole has been bogged down in parliament.

In February, prime minister Nawaz Sharif promised to speed up the passage of the proposed law but right groups say there has been no progress.

“There is no honour in killing in the name of honour,” Mr Sharif said about Baloch’s murder, according to his daughter, Maryam.

Baloch’s father, Muhammad Azeem, has filed a police complaint against Waseem and another one of his sons for their role in Baloch’s murder.

Police on Monday also said they were widening their investigations to include Mr Qavi, the Muslim cleric who was removed from a prominent Muslim committee after the selfie photos were published. He has denied any wrongdoing.

* Reuters, with additional reporting by Agence France-Presse