ISLAMABAD - The Supreme Court yesterday directed a local judge to dig in the alleged honour killings in Koshitan of eight youth, who are feared to have been buried secretly.
The case came to spotlight in 2012 when ex-CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry took suo motu on the application of Afzal Kohistani, who said on the orders of a jirga five innocent girls were killed after being filmed singing and clapping on the dance of two boys at a village wedding.
The two dancing boys are said to be the brothers of Afzal. A third guy, also a brother of Afzal, who captured the clip on cell phone that later ended up on Youtube, is also feared to have been killed for being part of something which is against the norms of local culture.
On June 20, the court disposed off the case after a delegation, comprising Civil Judge Munira Abbasi, MNA Bushra Gohar and woman rights activists Dr Fauzia Saeed and Dr Farzana Bari visited the village and found ‘no evidence’ of the killings.
Bari said the girls presented before them did not completely resemble the girls in the video. However, Justice Jawwad S Khawaja said that the statement given by Muhammad Afzal, the brother of two men who filmed the video, proved to be untrue.
Afterwards, all the eight youth had allegedly been killed but authorities claimed otherwise.
The case was reopened in August this year when Afzal filed a fresh plea, informing the Supreme Court he had new evidence that the girls as well as three of his brothers have been murdered.
The jury of Justice Ejaz Afzal and Justice Mushir Alam yesterday ordered the Koshitan district and sessions judge to visit the crime scene along with the senior lawmen and district police officer. The court sought the report within two weeks.
KP advocate general Latif Yousafzai showed up in the court on behalf of the district police chief, saying: “The statements of 46 witnesses under Section 164 of the CrPc were recorded that showed the girls are alive and leading a normal life in Kohistan.”
However, Dr Farzana Bari made a request for bringing the girls to court in-camera and told the court that during her visit to the village as part of probe panel in 2012, two girls were produced to prove that “all the girls were well and alive”.
Justice Ejaz said the apex court was a constitutional court and if they passed (the orders) to present girls for the verification, plethora of such cases would be filed in it.
Habibullah, who claimed that girls were alive, informed the jury that one of the girls was his niece, while other three were his relatives.
“I say this on oath that Amna is my niece, while Shireen Jan, Begum Jan and Baazga are my relatives and living in village Sairtaik in Kohistan district”, he added.