Women’s rights activists on Friday condemned the murder of a whistleblower in a notorious “honour killing” case. Afzal Kohistani, the man who first drew attention to the infamous incident in 2012, was gunned down in Abbottabad on Wednesday, police said. He had pursued a case in which a local cleric ordered the deaths of male and female wedding guests shown enjoying themselves in a video.
He was shot five times on a busy road and died on the spot, said Abdul Aziz Afridi, a senior police official. Officials said on Friday that at least two arrests had been made. “Will be raising this shocking murder of Afzal Kohistani in Parliament,” Opposition leader Sherry Rehman tweeted.
The wedding video emerged in 2012, showing women clapping as two men danced in the deeply conservative mountainous area of Kohistan. A local cleric sentenced several women and men to death over the video.
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Mr. Kohistani is believed to have been related to some of the men in the video. His entire family was banished from Kohistan as a result.
He took the rare step of pushing the case before the media and the justice system. The Supreme Court launched a commission to investigate — but in June 2012 was told the women had never been murdered.