Lahore, November 28: In Pakistan's Kohistan province, an 18-year-old girl lost her life in a suspected honour killing that was carried out by her own family. The incident started as a result of a social media video that went viral and showed a girl and boy dancing. Due to prompt police intervention, the girl's friend, who is also visible in the video, barely avoided a similar fate.

According to reports, the girl's kin killed her on the advice of the jirga, the traditional council of elders in the region. The jirga also condemned another girl who featured in the same video to death, but police intervened to save her before the punishment could be executed. Honour Killing in Pakistan: Woman Burnt Alive by Family Members in Punjab Province As She Wants To Marry a Man of Her Choice. 

After the outrage that erupted in various regions of Pakistan due to the girl's killing, many are demanding a stop to honour killings in the country. District Police Officer (DPO) Mukhtiar Tanoli told ARY News that the girl's family members had been taken into custody while the police are looking into the incident. Because of the increasingly aggressive circumstances, the boy in the video has gone into hiding.

After being sent to a neighbouring medical institution for legal and medical processes, the girl's body was later given back to her family. The second girl in the video claimed she felt no threat to her life from her family and that she wanted to go with them, according to the police.

We have started a probe to find the people who killed the girl and either called or urged a jirga to execute the death sentence, a police official told Geo TV.  Honour Killing: Pakistani Man Shots Dead 21-Year-Old Sister for Dancing and Modelling. 

The news reports said that the incident occurred almost ten years after five women were brutally killed under a jirga order in 2011 after their video of them clapping to a guy dancing at a family gathering went viral. The man in the video had three more siblings who all died subsequently. Their other brother, Afzal Kohistani, brought attention to the matter in 2012 and was shot dead in Abbottabad in March 2019 after receiving serious threats to his life.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 28, 2023 06:53 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).