Karachi, Nov 15 (PTI) In a fresh case of honour killing in Pakistan, a man was shot dead on Monday in Sindh province after he and his wife were attacked in broad daylight by the woman’s family after they eloped, the police said.
Wasim Ejaz and his wife Kausur were attacked along with their close friends by the father and brothers of the woman in one of Karachi’s busiest roads, they said.
While Ejaz was killed, his wife Kausar and two of his friends were injured in the firing, the police said.
The assailants who have been identified by the injured opened fire on the couple and two of their friends who were going to their temporary home from the city courts, Senior Superintendent of Police Qamar Raza Jaskani said.
Ejaz had fallen in love with Kausar who lived in his neighbourhood in Larkana city. They got married in a court after fleeing to Karachi with the help of two of his close friends, he said.
They were going home when they were fired upon. Kausar has identified her father and two of her brothers as the assailants who carried out the firing on their car, Jaskani said.
Killings in the name of honour are not uncommon in rural Pakistan and even in some urban areas but usually such gruesome acts are carried out quietly and hushed up by concerned families. However, the attack carried out in the name of honour in broad daylight in a metropolitan city like Karachi is rare.
Pakistan is said to account for about a fifth of 5,000 killings in the name of honour every year in the world.
In Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province, the police reported 197 and 237 cases of honour killings in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
In Sindh, a police report said that between 2019 and January 2020, at least 126 men were arrested for carrying out honour killings.