09 January 2005	Sunday	27 Ziqa'ad 1425

PESHAWAR, Jan 8: A teenaged son of a woman killed in honour-related dispute has appealed to the authorities to arrest the killers of his mother. His mother was killed early last month.

Naveed, 15, son of Ghani-ur-Rehman and Mahjabeen, has also requested the police to provide security to him and his four siblings.

The boy, hailing from Takht Bhai in Mardan district, told Dawn that his family lived in Rawalpindi. His father had a money dispute with his friend Qeemat Khan, a contractor, and to settle scores with the latter he charged his wife (Naveed's mother) of having illicit relations with the contractor, he added.

He said Qeemat Khan had even fired at his father in October last but he escaped unhurt. An FIR was registered against Qeemat Khan at the airport police station.

Naveed told a fact-finding team of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and journalists at his maternal house here on Saturday that soon after the incident (in Rawalpindi) his father had moved to his village in district Mardan along with his family and locked Mahjabeen, 46, in a room for almost a month.

He said that his father and his uncles blamed that his mother had illicit relations with Qeemat Khan, locked her up in a room and did not allow her even to meet her own children. She was mother of five.

"My mother denied the charges. Therefore, her movements were confined and was treated very badly," said Naveed.

Sher Afzal, father of Mahjabeen, told the fact-finding team that his grandson, Naveed, told him about the confinement of his daughter by her husband and the allegations against her.

Afzal said that he asked Ghani to bring evidence, if any, before a jirga of elders to prove his charges against the deceased but he did not listen.

He said that as Ghani could not get rid of the money dispute with his friend, he and his cousins, who live together in a joint family, alleged that Mahjabeen and Qeemat Khan had illicit relations. Later, Afzal claimed, they killed her.

Afzal said that he had written an application on Nov 30 last to the DSP of Takht Bhai for getting his daughter released from the illegal confinement of her husband.

SHO Sher Malook and ASI Rozi Khan were directed to look into the matter but they did not take any timely action to rescue the deceased, Afzal said.

An application was also submitted on Dec 1 last in the court of the additional session judge, Takht Bhai, on whose orders the police sent a bailiff and a police party to rescue her from the detention.

The brothers of Ghani, he said, opened fire. Ashraf, brother of Ghani, and their cousin, Fazl Noor, killed Mahjabeen and escaped from the spot. Ghani and his uncle Habib-ur-Rehman were arrested on the spot whereas the other four - Reedi Gul, Munir, Ashraf and Fazl Noor - escaped from the spot, the father of the deceased told Dawn.

An FIR, No. 640, was registered against the six accused on Dec 1 at the Lund Khwar police station, Mardan district.

The deceased, married for 20 years and a mother of five, was killed in the name of honour but it was done rather to settle a money dispute, mother of Mahjabeen told the fact-finding team of the HRCP.

"I tried to use lawful ways to rescue my daughter and those who killed her and violated the law are still at large even after more than a month, and are threatening us," said the father of the victim.

A brother of Ghani, who refused to tell his name to the fact-finding team of the HRCP, accepted that Mahjabeen was killed because she had allegedly dishonoured her family. He and other female family members also expressed anger that police had raided their house because they wanted to rescue Mahjabeen which was a matter of honour for them.

The mother-in-law of Mahjabeen alleged that Qeemat tried to kill her son on the instruction of Mahjabeen. She charged that the deceased tried to get her son killed because she had relations with the other man.

Naveed, however, said that he did not want to go back to his father's house because his father was on the side of the killers of his mother. He said that he along with his two brothers escaped from his father's house when their mother was shot dead.

But his two sisters Nayab, 8, and Saddaf, 5, he said, were still at his father's house and he missed them.

He appealed to the government to arrest his mother's killers.