HYDERABAD, Sept 9: Leaders of opinion and elected representatives have demanded that the influential persons of Naseerabad, Balochistan, who were involved in burying women alive, should be arrested and hanged in public.

Speaking at a seminar on “Violence Against Women–Karo-Kari is a heinous crime” organised by Pirbhat Women’s Development Society at the press club on Monday, they called for repealing all the anti-women laws and making laws to stop violence against women.

MPA Humera Alwani said that 37 women were murdered on the pretext of karo-kari within a span of only three months and FIRs had been registered against perpetrators of the heinous crimes but none of the accused had been arrested.

She said that the murder of four women in Balochistan including Rukhsana and Farzana on the pretext of karo-kari had been confirmed. The law of the land and religious teachings permitted women to marry according to their own free will but in practice the society denied women this right, she said.

She said that not a single accused of this heinous crime had been arrested so far and added that a minister was trying to protect the accused while a senator had opined that it was a Baloch tradition.

She said that the Sindh Assembly was considering making a law on women and demanded that all the people involved in the murder of innocent women on the pretext of karo-kari should be arrested and hanged in public.

PPP leader and rights activist Comrade Jam Saqi said that the incident of burying women alive was a stain on Baloch nation.

Referring to Senator Asrar Zehri’s defence of the barbaric act, Saqi said that the tradition of Baloch people was to protect women and not to crucify them at the altar of karo-kari.

Columnist Amar Sindhu said that the chieftains and landlords considered themselves masters of the destinies of people and had created states within the state. It was tantamount to rebellion against the state, she said.

She said that the chieftains and landlords were holding the poor as hostages. It was incumbent on the government to arrest the people who had buried women alive and hang them in public, she said.

Nazeer Memon, Sehar Rizvi, Wahid Pandrani, Punhal Sario, Rubina Chandio and others also spoke at the seminar.