MANSEHRA: A Kohistan resident facing death decree by a local jirga has moved the Supreme Court against the Peshawar High Court’s decision to set aside the conviction of three people for the “honour killing” of five women in the region.

“The killers of five women are now free, so they’ve joined the ‘death squad’ formed by the jirga to kill me and my brother,” Bin Yaseer told Dawn on Monday.

Five Kohistan women were allegedly killed by their family members in 2013 after a viral video showed the former clap as the brother of Bin Yaseer danced in a wedding function.

In 2019, the trial court awarded death sentence to three men for those killings.

Nine people, including five women and four brothers, have so far been killed over the video issue.

Moves SC against decision to set aside honour killing conviction

Mr Yaseer, who made the dance video, said the PHC’s Abbottabad Circuit Bench had set aside the life imprisonment of three accused last month.

Accompanied by his counsel Hadi Ali Chattha, he said in the appeal, he had requested the Supreme Court to restore the sentence of “killers”.

“Though police have increased my and my brother’s security, our lives are still in danger as the death squad formed by the jirga is after our blood,” he said.

Lawyer Chattha said he and four other legal practitioners would plead the case of Mr Yaseer in the Supreme Court free of charge.

PROTEST THREATENED: A jirga in Suo area of Upper Kohistan district on Monday warned if the Wapda didn’t rebuild the government primary school in their area, residents would stage street protests.

“This primary school, the only in the area, was pulled down by the Wapda five years ago for reconstruction but the promised work has yet to take place forcing students to attend classes in the open,” local cleric Maulana Waliullah Toheedi told the jirga.

People from Suo and adjoining areas attended the jirga and warned if work on the school didn’t begin immediately, they would block the Karakoram Highway indefinitely.

Mr Toheedi said the Wapda had to build and reconstruct educational institutions, skill centres, roads and housing colonies for the people hit by Dasu hydropower project but that hadn’t happened yet.

The jirga members met the deputy commissioner of Upper Kohistan and informed him about the issue.

Mr Toheedi said the people were holding rallies against FIRs registered against them at the behest of Wapda, so those cases should be withdrawn.

The deputy commissioner said he would take up the issue with the Wapda and ensure the school’s reconstruction.

Published in Dawn, November 7th, 2023