ISLAMABAD: After denying involvement in the murder of five women, over a video in which they were seen dancing, detained suspects from Kohistan district of KP province have confessed their crime.
“The [arrested] suspects have confessed to killing Bazigha, Sareen Jan and Shaheen and dumping their bodies in the Chor Nala River,” Express Tribune quote Kohistan District Police Officer Iftikhar Khan in a report.
The development comes after a local court in Kohistan on November 29 granted the Palas police an eight-day remand of the suspects – Umar Khan, Safeer, Sarfaraz and Saiper. However, they confessed to the crime within four days.
They have been charged with murder, criminal conspiracy, misleading government officials, cheating and fraud.
These suspects, all close relatives of the victims, had killed five women on the directions of a jirga after a mobile phone video surfaced showing them clapping while two young men were dancing to a local Pushto song during a wedding in a Seerto Village of Kohistan in 2012.
The women belonged to the Azadkhel tribe while the two boys to the Salekhel tribe. When the video was leaked to the Azadkhel tribe, a jirga, comprising 12 elders, condemned the four women and another minor girl for arranging the mixed gathering. It also condemned the two boys to death.
Later, it was reported that the four women in the video, along with the minor girl, were killed on May 30, 2012 in accordance with the jirga decree.
The breakthrough in investigation is likely to solve a heinous crime that made international headlines.
