 Screencap of the mobile video showing the girls involved: Bazeegha, Sereen Jan, Begum Jan and Amina | |
| Date | May 2012 |
|---|---|
| Venue | Peach Bela, Palas Valley[1] |
| Location | Kohistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan |
| Type | Honour killing |
| First reporter | Afzal Kohistani |
| Deaths | 3 (lowest confirmed estimate) |
| Convictions | Mohammad Umar Khan, Saeer and Sabir[2] |
| Sentence | Life imprisonment (25 years) |
The Kohistan video case is an honour killing case that took place in May 2012 in Palas Valley, Kohistan, Pakistan. It involved the honour killing of up to five girls, of whom a video had emerged on the internet. The video featured a boy dancing while four girls clapped and sang along.
It is claimed that, when the footage became public, a tribal jirga was held shortly afterwards where it was decided that the participants as well as the boy who filmed the video should be killed.
Afzal Kohistani, the elder brother of the two boys involved in the video, went against local tribal tradition and brought the case to national attention; first asking for the participants' protection and subsequently claiming that the girls in the video had already been murdered.[3] Kohistani campaigned for over seven years to keep the case in the public eye until he was murdered in March 2019.
In September 2019, three men were convicted of murdering three of the girls from the video and were sentenced to life imprisonment. The status of the fourth and fifth girl remains unconfirmed.[4]
- ^ Khan, Rina Saeed (8 January 2013). "Murders in Paradise". DAWN.COM.
- ^ "One video, seven lives". Daily Times. 6 September 2019.
- ^ Hashim, Asad (26 Mar 2019). "How a Pakistani whistle-blower was killed for 'honour'". www.aljazeera.com.
- ^ "Three given life in 'honour killings' blood feud". BBC News. 5 September 2019.