Pakistan Orders Inquiry Into Killing of Five Women

Rights groups say the perpetrators are connected to a powerful political family and have managed to block a police investigation.

Pakistan ordered an investigation on Monday into the killing of five women who rights groups say were shot and buried alive because three of them wanted to marry men of their choice.

The killings have produced shock and outrage even in a country inured to the murder of women by male relatives in the name of family honour in conservative, rural areas where tribal traditions hold sway.

The women were killed in Babakot village, 320 km (200 miles) east of Quetta, capital of the southwestern province of Baluchistan, in July.

Rights groups say the perpetrators are connected to a powerful political family and have managed to block a police investigation.

The government's top Interior Ministry official, Rehman Malik, said he had ordered an inquiry headed by a top police officer and he wanted a report within a week.

"We want facts," Malik said.

"This isn't a European society. We're a different society but violence against women can't be tolerated either in the name of culture or religion," he said.

Later, a senior police officer in the area said they had arrested five relatives of the women on suspicion of being involved in the killings.

"We're interrogating them and trying to find out the place where the women were buried," said police officer Ghulam Shabir Sheikh.

OUTRAGE

Pakistan is a conservative Muslim society but women have gained positions of power. Benazir Bhutto was prime minister twice, and the governor of the central bank and the speaker of parliament are women.

But in rural areas many women have few freedoms and, rights groups say, they get little if any protection from the police and courts in disputes with men.

A senator from Baluchistan provoked more outrage last week when he said what happened to the women was a reflection of tribal traditions in his province.

Rights groups including the Women's Action Forum have been demanding action.

"We are ... outraged that throughout the past six weeks, the local police and law enforcement authorities are not only refusing to take action, they are still denying the occurrence of the crime," the group said in a statement on the weekend.

"Are Pakistani women not human beings? Or are they not considered citizens, deserving of equal protection under the Constitution and the law?" it asked.

"The government needs to provide immediate answers and immediate action," it said.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, about 1,000 people are killed in honour-related crimes every year in Pakistan.