KHYBER: The district and sessions judge here on Thursday convicted a man of killing his wife and a male relative on pretext of honour and sentenced him to death.

It is believed to be the first-ever conviction in honour killing case in tribal districts. Judge Hidayatullah Khan ruled that the prosecution proved its case beyond any shadow of doubt against the accused, Zewar Shah, a resident of Tirah area.

The court sentenced him to death on two counts and also ordered him to pay compensation of Rs500,000 each to the legal heirs of the deceased persons.

The complainant in the FIR was an assistant sub-inspector of Tirah police station, Iran Gul, as no one from the legal heirs of the deceased man and woman was ready to lodge a report or conduct their postmortem.

It is believed to be first such conviction in tribal districts

A prime witness of the occurrence was a daughter of the deceased woman. She presently lives in a women crisis centre as there is threat to her life.

The complainant stated that during patrolling, after information about the double murder, he rushed to the spot and found dead body of a man lying near his house. He stated that some locals informed him that body of a woman was also lying in the house of the accused.

He stated that the villagers said that the deceased man was first cousin of the accused, who was suspecting him of having illicit relations with his wife. A senior public prosecutor, Shafiullah, contended this was a case of double murder on pretext of honour.

He said that soon after the occurrence, the accused absconded and did not report the matter to police. He said that in incidents of honour killing, there was rarely any eyewitness account.

The prosecutor said that the murder of the wife of the accused in his house, non-reporting of the incident to police, unexplained absconding after the occurrence and non-participation her funeral spoke of his guilty mind.

The court observed that in cases of honour-related murders, the immediate legal heirs happened to be the culprits, therefore, no outsider would like to take pain and buy other’s enmity by appearing as a witness.

“Whenever in honour killing, the male and female are meted out the same treatment, the families of both sides feel satisfied with it,” the court observed.

The court observed that before the murder of the woman, she had asked her daughter to save her life as she had been alarmed after hearing about the murder of the deceased man.

The court also praised ASI Iran Gul and investigation officer Alamgir Khan as well as the daughter of the deceased woman and observing that without them the crime committed by the accused would not have surfaced.

The court observed that the two police officers made sincere efforts to nab the culprit.

Published in Dawn, November 18th, 2022