Father kills daughter, nephew in latest ‘honor killing' case in Pakistan's Balochistan
The incident took place Tuesday evening in the Lashar Abad area along Quetta's Qambrani Road, and came just days after a viral video showed a young couple being executed in a separate honor killing in
Balochistan's Digari area in Quetta district. That case, involving a tribal jirga ordering the deaths of a woman and man over an alleged illicit relationship, has drawn widespread condemnation and renewed calls for legal reform.
According to Abdul Majeed, the Station House Officer of Kechi Baig Police Station, the latest victims were identified as Ghulam Qadir, 19, and Nazneen, 18.
'The slain man and woman were cousins and the father, named Abdul Latif, shot and killed both his daughter and nephew inside his house,' Majeed told Arab News. 'The girl was from the Lehri tribe and the boy hailed from the Rind tribe.'
The officer said the killings were motivated by accusations of an 'illicit relationship' between the pair, adding that the case had been handed over to the Serious Crime Investigation Wing (SCIW) and a search was underway for the father, who was on the run.
The family of the male victim had retrieved his body for burial, but no one from the girl's family had come forward to claim her, Majeed added.
Rights groups say honor killings - the murder of individuals, often women, by relatives for allegedly tarnishing family 'honor' - remain widespread in Pakistan, particularly in tribal and rural regions. Activists estimate as many as 1,000 deaths a year in the name of so-called honor.
Although Pakistan passed a landmark law in 2016 to close loopholes that once allowed families to 'forgive' perpetrators, conviction rates remain extremely low, often below 2 percent, according to UN estimates.
The recent video from Balochistan, showing the execution-style killing of a couple in the Digari area in Quetta district, reignited public debate over jirga justice and the state's failure to prevent such crimes.
Police said 11 suspects had been arrested in the Digari case, including two men named in the first information report (FIR) filed by police after the killing.
That attack, caught on video, appeared to show the victims being shot in a mountainous area on the orders of a tribal council.
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