Four-member team flown to Kohistan to probe 'fornication' accused women's murders

Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government have airlifted a four-member team to Peech Bela in an effort to gather information on the alleged execution of five Kohistani women on the orders of a tribal jirga.

Five women, including an 'accomplice', and two men were sentenced to death after a video emerged of them singing and clapping at a village wedding. The man and women were declared 'ghul' (fornicators) and were accused of defying Kohistani customs.

The four-member team has been sent to convince the Azadkhel tribesmen to help the government prove that the five women are safe in their homes and the evidence should be admissible in the Supreme Court that has fixed June 20 for hearing the case, reports The Express Tribune.

The team comprises of the former provincial minister of MMA Maulana Asmatullah, PML-N district president Syed Gul Badshah, the alleged head of the controversial jirga Moulvi Javed and DSP Palas Bazimir Khan, official sources said.

Meanwhile, the journalists who broke the news of the jirga decree and later reported on the alleged killing of the women are facing threats from the local tribes and the administration.

A stringer for a local Urdu daily said the Hazara division commissioner has blamed media persons of Kohistan and Hazara for maligning Kohistani customs by exposing the murders of the women.

A senior journalist said the commissioner told him that as a journalist he was "slinging mud on the honour of Kohistan". Senior police officials of the district were provoking the local tribes against the journalist calling them traitors of Kohistan, he said.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Bazimir Khan, rejected the report that he or his senior officers had ever hurled any threat to the media persons and asserted that the women are alive and would remain unharmed. (ANI)