Pakistan Detains Three Over ‘Honor Killing’ Of Teenage Girls

Pakistani police have detained three people over the killing of two teenage girls shot dead after video of them with a man surfaced on the Internet, officials say.

Those arrested include two close relatives of the girls, as well as the person who allegedly shot the mobile phone video, police in the North Waziristan tribal district said on May 18.

A relative suspected of carrying out the killing is still at large, district police chief Shafiullah Gandapur told RFE/RL.

The two girls, said to be aged 16 and 18, were shot dead in North Waziristan on May 14.

Hundreds of women are killed every year in Pakistan in so-called honor killings for violating conservative Pakistani traditions on love, marriage, and public behavior.

Police have come under mounting pressure to investigate these crimes, which include acid attacks, blinding, and murder by relatives of victims.

In the latest reported case of honor killings, a Pakistani women’s rights activist exiled in the United States, Gulalai Ismail, said the fact that police in North Waziristan filed a case the day after the two teenagers were killed was a “win” for women in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

“In such crimes, time is of the essence,” Ismail said. “And if this is delayed, like seven such murders that happened earlier this month, the incident is swiftly swept under the carpet, with many passed off as suicide or natural deaths.”

With reporting by Reuters