Provincial Information Minister insists girls are alive

Provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain insisted that the girls were alive who were allegedly slaughtered following a jirga decree in Kohistan district.

The minister denied that the women have been killed but witnesses from the rival tribe insisted otherwise. They claimed to identify graves of the slain women.

Iftikhar Hussain added that a fact-finding mission discovered that all women involved in the jirga decree were alive and in safe hands.

He observed, “The mission comprising Hazara commissioner Khalid Khan Umerzai, DIG Dr Mohammad Naeem, Kohistan DCO Aqaal Badshah and DPO Abdul Majid Afridi visited the area and met the women and their parents”.

He claimed that the girls were alieve and according to local elders and their families no one could kill them on the basis of a suspicious video.

The two brothers of Mohammad Afzal – who had filmed the women, made the video public and subsequently broke the news of the jirga decree and the women’s killing – were also arrested, Hussain said.

He noted, “Along with the mission members, clerics and elders of the area, we also searched for new graves but found nothing in support of Mohammad Afzal’s claim about the killing of the five women”.

He said that anyone who has information about the killing of the women, with solid evidence, should share it with the administration.

“Investigation is still continuing and if I get any kind of information about their killing, I will inform the media,” he said.

Afzal, however, said his brothers were being tortured in detention by the police to force them to change their statements on the women being killed.

His brothers, 20-year-old Bin Yasir and Gul Nazar, 21, were arrested two days ago after being booked for filming four women of the Azad Khel tribe and making the video public.

The men, according to police sources, confessed to filming the women with their consent. They also told the police that the women were slaughtered on the jirga’s decree and a man, Lajalil Khan of the Chootaykhel tribe, was the eyewitness.

The two men were also condemned to death by the jirga but managed to flee initially. Meanwhile, elders of Salikhel tribe, to which the men belong, have announced to identify the graves of the slain women.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=24940

Posted by Faisal Farooq on Jun 6 2012. Filed under Pakistan, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.