Four men and two women sentenced to death for dancing at Pakistan wedding

Religious hardliners have ordered the deaths of four men and two women after they were filmed dancing together at a wedding in northern Pakistan, according to local police and relatives. A traditional jirga, or tribal council, condemned the six to death for “staining the honour” of their families after they defied local customs that require men and women to remain separate at weddings.

They were sentenced after mobile phone footage of the event surfaced, infuriating residents of a remote village in the mountainous district of Kohistan, 100 miles north of the capital Islamabad. Muhammad Afzal, brother of the two men, said: “A tribal jirga has declared them fornicators and they might be killed any time.” Police officers said they were working to rescue the six and local officials said a cleric had been arrested.



Abdul Majeed Afridi, district police officer, said: “It was decided that the men will be killed first, but they ran away so the women are safe for the moment. I have sent a team to rescue them and am waiting to hear some news.” However, he added that the six might be victims of a local tribal dispute and it was not clear whether the six had been dancing together. “All of them were shown separately in the video. I’ve seen the video taken on a cell phone myself, it shows four women singing and a man dancing in separate scenes and then another man sitting in a separate shot,” he added.

The wedding happened two months ago but the controversy only came to light this week. “Police have arrested a cleric and his companion for issuing the death decree, but they totally denied it,” local administration official Aqal Badshah Khattak said. The case highlights the issue of honour killings in Pakistan, where women are treated as second-class citizens in conservative, rural areas.