PESHAWAR, Oct 25: Participants at a workshop held here on Saturday expressed serious concern over the awarding of nominal punishments in the honour-related murder cases. They urged the judiciary not to favour offenders in honour-related killings.

The three-day training workshop was organized by the Aurat Foundation on “Law, Justice and Equality of Women’s Rights” for the civil society groups.

Addressing the workshop, an advocate of Lahore High Court, Hassam Qadir Shah, said that there were flaws in the Qisas and Diyat law, and the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance 1979 violated rights of women.

Mr Shah informed that section 309 and 310 of the Qisas and Diyat law, which was finally made an act of the parliament in 1997, had made killing a compoundable offence in which compromise could be made with the offender by the legal heirs of victim. He termed the Zina Ordinance a self contradictory law.

Sagheer Bukhari of NGO Roazan explained various forms of the domestic violence.