KOHAT, Oct 23: During the last four years 62 girls and elderly women were killed, mostly in the spirit of revenge, by the rival parties who harboured enmity with their male family members in Kohat district.

Besides, a large number of cases of extreme domestic violence also went unreported during this period, according to a police report for 1999-2002.

The highest number of female victims was registered in 1999, in which 22 women were killed in various parts of the district, while between 2000 and 2002, some 40 women were killed.

The police arrested 78 people in connection with these murders whereas 37 cases were still pending in the courts. Sixty cases had been challenged after preliminary verdicts in the lower courts.

According to a Dawn survey, only murder cases had been reported at the police stations whereas a large number of married women who are subjected to violence dare not speak about the atrocities inflicted upon them by their husbands and in-laws in the male-dominated society, as a cultural norm. In serious cases, the family doctors are called for help to take care of the victim at home.

The cases of burning of women are portrayed as mere accidents which are not reported by the family members.

In the nearby tribal area of Orakzai Agency, 16 cases of honour killings were reported whereas only two of the boys could be arrested and murdered. The male friends had a better chance to run away after the tribes learnt about their illicit relationship, leaving behind the girls to sacrifice their lives in the name of love.

In the absence of police laws in these areas, such cases are decided by the jirga which could award the punishment on the basis of eyewitness account even if it is a single man’s. There is no requirement of verifying the charges or taking the accused’s statements for record. Even then the victim’s family carries the stigma for generations and in most cases leave the native village forever.

HUMAN TRAFFICKING: Sm-uggling of poor children abroad still continues unabated although strict laws had been enacted recently to check the menace. In these cases, the victims are mostly young pretty girls, both local and Afghan, and minor boys. In very rare cases, the boys are sold to a party in Rawalpindi which smuggles them to Middle East for camel race. The girls are forced into prostitution in big hotels in Peshawar and Rawalpindi.