A woman and her infant son were among three shot dead for so-called ‘honour’ in the early hours of Monday in the Rustam area of Mardan, officials said.

Rustam Station House Officer (SHO) Mohammad Daud Khan confirmed that the incident took place in the Taja Banda area, saying that a woman, her one-year-old son and her father-in-law were allegedly killed by the cousins of the woman.

SHO Khan said that a first information report (FIR) was lodged at the Rustam police station on the complaint of the woman’s mother-in-law, Nasim Bibi.

Bibi told the police that she was asleep at home when she heard the sounds of someone jumping into the house, which prompted her to rush out of her room.

“I saw armed men, Abuzar and Bakhtiar, enter the room of my daughter-in-law, wife of Shahi Mulk, and open indiscriminate firing at her. [They] also shot my husband Sher Aman and fled the scene,” she told the police in the FIR.

According to the FIR, all the victims died instantly.

Bibi also stated in the FIR what she believed was the motive for the attack.

She said her son Shahi Mulk had tied the knot with slain Safia Bibi through a court marriage as her family was against their marriage.

She added that her daughter-in-law had been in contact with her son before the marriage.

The Rustam police have registered a case against Abuzar and Bakhtiar, residents of Spenkai and Rustam.

The FIR was lodged under sections 302 (premeditated murder), 311 (Ta’zir after waiver or compounding of right of qisas in qatl-i-amd), 34 (common intention), and 449 (house-trespass to commit offence punishable with death) of the Pakistan Penal Code, and raids are underway to apprehend the alleged suspects.

Cases of honour killings are prevalent in Pakistan. From January to November last year, a total of 346 people fell victim to ‘honour’ crimes in the country.

The previous two years also saw a consistent rise in murders related to so-called ‘honour’.

In 2023, the country saw a total of 490 ‘honour’ killing incidents taking place, while in 2022, as many as 590 people lost their lives to ‘honour’ killings.

In December, Amina Bibi, a mother of three, was shot dead by her brother, Zafar Hussain, in the Qasimpur area of Pakpattan. Hussain told the police he thought his sister had a “questionable character”.

In November, a mother of five was brutally killed in Faisalabad by her husband and younger brother, allegedly to protect the family’s ‘honour’. Accused of having an affair, the victim was attacked at home with bricks, leading to fatal injuries. Her body was later dumped in a nullah through a donkey cart.

A man murdered four women in his family in October, including his mother, in a fit of rage over their TikTok videos. He told the police the videos spread “immodesty and shamelessness, tarnishing the family’s reputation”.