News Desk |
Afzal Kohistani, the man who unveiled the Kohistan honor killing incident has been gunned down by unknown assailants on Wednesday in Gami Addah area Abbottabad.
Afzal was proactively pursuing the case of honor killing in Supreme Court after publicizing the horrific killings of the people involved in Kohistan video scandal. In an attack yesterday, he suffered bullet injuries and died on the spot.
Muhammad Afzal Kohistani was the brother of one of the boys in the video of Kohistan scandal. He had revealed that the three girls spotted in the said video were killed on 30th May 2012 on the orders of the local cleric who led a tribal jirga of 30-40 members.
Later during the interrogation, they confessed of killing three girls Begum Jan, Sireen Jan and Bazgha by firing and reported to have disposed of their bodies in Nala Chorh.
The case dates back to 2011 when a video of young girls and boys dancing emerged on social media that rapidly went viral. Five girls in the audience, as well as the man who was dancing and his two brothers, were allegedly murdered on a jirga’s orders.
Former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhary had taken a suo motu notice of the case in June, 2012, and constituted a fact-finding mission that after investigation submitted a report in July 2017, stating that the girls were alive. In July last year, a new case was registered in Palas Police station on the Supreme Court orders.
Following the registration of the case, Police had arrested four suspects Umar Khan, Saber, Mohamad Sarfraz, and Saeer in December 2018. Later during the interrogation, they confessed of killing three girls Begum Jan, Sireen Jan and Bazgha by firing and reported to have disposed of their bodies in Nala Chorh. The other two girls Amna and Shaheen are alive and will be presented before the court, they further said in the interrogation.
Read more: Continuing scourge of honor killing in Pakistan
However, it is reported that all five girls have been in fact killed and arrested culprits are lying not only about killing but also about the graves to avoid revealing the severe torture committed to killing the girls.
Afzal Kohistani had been voicing about the threats he was receiving from powerful members of jirga but police failed to provide him security.