ISLAMABAD, June 3: The Supreme Court has held that honour killings could not be justified on any ground, especially the killing of those family members of the accused who have no role in dishonouring of any person.
Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza, writing for a two-member bench, observed that the court would not go deep into whether the honour killings were justified or not, but would only refer to the present case to determine if the plea of honour killing was at all genuine.
The court made these observations while hearing a petition filed by Ghazanfar Abbas seeking rejection of lower courts verdict which had awarded him death sentence on three counts in an honour killing case.
Convict Ghazanfar Abbas, son of Ijaz Hussain Shah of Jalalpur Pirwala, had killed three family members of Manzoor after suspecting him to be involved in the kidnapping of his sister Ms Surriya alias Guddi.
The petitioner tried to justify his act on the plea of ‘honour’.
The court, after examining the whole case, observed that it had come on record that convict Ghazanfar Abbas and his father suspected that Manzoor, son of Allah Ditta, had abducted Ms Surriya, who had been recovered from Karachi later. The court observed that if it was so the direct motive should have been available against Manzoor.
“It is not justified that a person, in the name of honour, should come out to exterminate the whole family as the convict has almost done in the instant case.”
The court further observed that the petitioner had not only killed Allah Ditta who
had nothing to do with the abduction of Ms Surriya but also killed Ms Jewan Mai and Ms Nazeer Mai. He went on to kill Ms Nasreen Mai and Fayyaz Hussain but luckily they both survived.
“Such a desperate act and a blatant violation of law can in no circumstances be justified on the plea of unbriddled sense of honour.”
Dismissing the appeal of the convict, the court observed: “We have no hesitation in holding, in the circumstances, that there exists no mitigating circumstances at all. In the instant case, the two courts below have not only imposed proper sentence but it was their duty to do so.
