Couple among five killed to redeem ‘family honour’

By Faiz Mohammad

CHARSADDA: A newly wed couple and three other people were killed on Monday allegedly by relatives of the bride to redeem the ‘family’s honour’. The killers had stormed the groom’s house in Sardhri to ‘punish’ the family for the marriage solemnised against their wishes.

According to local people, over 25 armed men, some of them in police uniform, besieged the house of Kamran who had married the teenaged girl who had eloped with him from Chaplai Kalley Toora Mera in Mardan about two and a half months ago.

An FIR was lodged by Kamran’s brother Salman who survived the attack. He said the assailants pretending to be policemen knocked at the door, called Kamran out and shot him dead.

According to him, the girl’s cousin Gul Zaman and uncles Telawat Khan and Sharif Khan entered the house by scaling a wall and started firing, killing her, Kamran’s father Amir Nawaz and mother and sister.

The attackers besieged the nearby houses of some relatives to stop them from coming to the family’s help.

Locals said the attackers had left the police uniforms at the place. District police chief Mohammad Riaz said that five people had attacked the family and they escaped although the area had been cordoned off.
Source: Dawn
Date:6/30/2009