Honour killings happen every day in Pakistan. But only a few make it into a police file. Even fewer stir public outrage. Suddenly officials jolt awake, stage media dramas, hound a few suspects – until the story is buried under glossier headlines. No follow-up. No accountability. No systemic fix. Just a bloody rinse-and-repeat cycle of cruelty wrapped in tribal codes and fake piety.
A woman and man are driven into the wilderness and pumped with bullets. In Attock, a husband and father-in-law riddle a woman over her ‘questionable’ character. A couple in Lower Dir is swallowed by the collective ‘honour’ of the community. Now, a 19-year-old bride in Pirwadhai is murdered after a jirga seals her fate. Yes, a jirga. That medieval relic we call our heritage, not our shame.
Let’s unpack jirga, a term too often glorified while it quietly devours lives whole. It isn’t some noble local council doling out justice. It’s a mob of unlettered patriarchs – yes, only men – with bloated egos and unchecked power, posing as custodians of culture. Jirgas fester in rural, tribal and feudal pockets where the law steps aside and patriarchy storms in. They claim to resolve disputes but in truth coerce settlements, always skewed toward the powerful. They’re factories of brutality. Their logic is pressure. Their justice is vengeance. And the verdicts of these kangaroo courts would make medieval Europe flinch: swara, vani, karokari, exile. They dish out cruelty like party favours and call it mediation. They treat women like bargaining chips to appease bruised male pride. While they thump their chests in the name of Islam, their rulings trample every Islamic principle of mercy, fairness and due process.
Let’s detour to the fathers – the hypocrites in polished shoes and prayer caps. The ones who see sons as human and daughters as breathing burdens born to obey. They believe the son can marry anyone, anywhere while the daughter gets handed to whoever her father picks, often an aging cousin with no education and a temper the size of his tractor. And if she dares – dares – to choose her own partner, falls in love or asserts her will? That’s rebellion. That’s dishonour. That’s a deathable crime for families drunk on ghayrat. She’s sacrificed on the altar of izzat. The kind of izzat these ghayratmand fathers and brothers flaunt – in markets, streets, homes, parks – through their lecherous stares. Spare me the lecture on honour when women are treated like livestock.
And before anyone says “But we have laws” – yes, we do. The Sindh High Court banned jirgas in 2004. The Supreme Court echoed that in 2006. Same verdict, same inaction. Courts here excel in outlawing, issuing lofty verdicts and drafting symbolic rulings. Prosecution isn’t their strong suit.
The police have been ordered time and again to crush jirga gatherings. But they don’t want trouble. They clutch their careers, comfort and cowardice while the law bleeds into the dust. They don’t reach the village where a girl awaits a jirga’s noose; they don’t show up before the grave is dug. After all, going after armed tribal councils is dangerous. Maybe we should borrow a battalion of Chinese police to dismantle these jirgas operating as tribal courts, rural mafias and feudal relics. Let’s see how long they last then.
But the police aren’t the only ones shielding this rot. There’s rot in parliament too – enablers who sell their souls for votes from tribal brokers, chieftains and conservatives. They trade justice for votes, shaking hands with the devil and smiling all the way back to parliament with big smiles and bigger mandates. They love the seat more than they love justice. Honourable members, indeed!
This isn’t a legal issue anymore. It’s a moral collapse. A cultural cancer. We don’t need more laws. Time to draw a line in the sand: surrender the justice system to barbarism or fix our gutless courts and institutions. Let’s become barbarians or clean this filth. No middle ground. No more hypocrisy.
The more we keep pretending it’s someone else’s problem, the more graves we’ll dig in the name of honour. We’ve buried enough daughters. Isn’t it time we buried the damn jirga system instead?
