LAHORE, Nov 20: Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Chairperson Tahir Muhammad Khan and Secretary-General Hina Jilani said on Saturday that the increased blatancy with which the honor killings were being committed had proved that society was reverting to the worst kind of tribal medievalism.

Condemning the brutal gunning down of a young couple for marrying of their own free will at Chamkini near Peshawar in a joint statement issued here, they regretted that the authorities had consistently failed to act against the hillers and indeed, as in the latest case, the police had protected them. At least, a dozen honour killings had already taken place in the country since the adoption of the law on honour killing by the parliament in October with the legislation not apparently backed by any real will to change the ground realities.

They said that the reports indicated that Awal Gul Muhammad and a girl from his locality decided to get married and eloped just before Eid. The brothers of the girl held Awal's family hostage till the return of the couple, shot them dead firing multiple bullets into their bodies and buried them quietly late at night. More disturbingly still the police neither registered a case nor arrested the culprits even after being alerted by the neighbourers.

They said that the case was only the latest in the series of honour killings. Two similar murders had also been reported last year. The trend tragically appeared to be on the increase with the impunity that the killers so often enjoyed encouraging others to follow the examples set confident that they would escape penalty for their terrible crime.