MANSEHRA: The Kohistan police on Wednesday registered an FIR of the alleged honour killings of 2011.

Five girls were allegedly killed by their families in the highly conservative Palas area for cheering male dancers during a wedding ceremony.

Kolai-Palas district police officer Iftikhar Khan told reporters that the registration of FIR was ordered by the Supreme Court on the petition of Afzal Kohistani, whose three brothers were killed after being seen dance in the viral video.

DPO says suspects will be held if girls not located

He said the police had registered the FIR under Section 364 of the Pakistan Penal Code and started investigation to know about the five girls.

The DPO said if the girls weren’t found, then the police could add Section 302 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to the FIR and arrest suspected killers.

A judicial commission formed by the Supreme Court and headed by the district and sessions judge of Kohistan had revealed that the families concerned didn’t produce the girls seen in the video and instead, showed some other underage girls.

The court had ordered the district police last month to register an FIR of the alleged honour killings in light of those findings.

JOB BAN: The Nazmeen Ittehad, which represents the village and neighbourhood council nazims, has demanded of the government to lift the ban on filling the vacancies of secretaries and low-grade employees at local bodies.

The demand was made during a meeting chaired by Ittehad president Mohammad Fareed and attended by the village and neighbourhood council nazims here on Wednesday.

The participants praised the last government of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf for introducing a vibrant local government system in the province.

“The PTI had served the people by giving them a viable local government system, which addressed their problems at grassroots levels,” said Ittehad general secretary Basharat Ali Swati.

He said the local bodies had suffered a lot due to the vacancies of secretaries and peons.

Mr Swati said the nazims were optimistic that the coming PTI government would amend laws to strengthen local bodies.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2018