karachi, march 8: A 14-year-old bride shot dead by her husband on their wedding night last week is another worrying sign that Pakistan's centuries-old tradition of "honour killings" is on the rise, activists say. Karo Kari, which translates as "blackened man, blackened woman", is a tribal tradition which decrees death for women suspected of adultery and is still practised in feudal southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh provinces. Men often make women their victims to resolve other disputes, often over land or family feuds, disguising the deaths as Karo Kari. Officials and police too often turn a blind eye, activists say. The story of 14-year-old Rahima Mugheri is no different. On March 2, she married 28-year-old Niazal Mugheri in a colourful ceremony in Sajawal Junejo village near Larkana city, some 450 kilometers (280 miles) northeast of Karachi. "On the wedding night, the groom came out of the bedroom and announced that his wife had confessed to having a sexual relationship with some boy. The whole family declared the girl Kari," said Nazir Qureshi, an activist at Sindhyani Tehrik, a private group working to raise awareness among women in tribal areas. "The groom's eldest brother fired the first shot, then two of his other brothers and then he himself. Soon the girl still in her red bridal dress lay in a pool of blood," Qureshi said. The groom escaped and was only arrested by police after activists began protesting over the killing and the story was highlighted in the press.The girl's mother Singheer is distraught. "She was just a bride and not kari," she told the activists. The girl's father Bahram Mugheri told the police: "My daughter was killed because the boy had an enmity with the man." The 21-year-old accused of being the girl's lover fled for his life as, according to tradition, he must also be killed. Young girls who have not yet reached puberty, married women with children, even grandmothers are killed on charges of having sexual relationships with men they have often never seen.And those who survive the attacks live their lives as social outcasts. In the past, according to writer and historian Abdul Qadir Junejo, the tradition was to dress up the karo and kari as bridegroom and bride, have a wedding ceremony, and then hack the couple to death. Now activists say reported cases are on the rise. "It is on an increase as around 600 such cases were reported alone in 1999," said Nighat Taufeeq, who works for the private Shirkat Gah women's resource centre. That figure was against 400 reported cases in 1998. "When women are fighting for their rights around the world we here are still in the chains of tribal ritual of the dark ages which is unIslamic," Taufeeq said. "It is an unholy alliance that works against the woman: the killers take pride in what they have done, the tribal elders condone the act and protect the killers and the police connive in the cover-up," she said. Usually such cases are settled outside court by the jirga, a tribal council, which announces a verdict. Often the girl's family is compensated and pressurised not to make an official complaint. If tried in court the men often escape with lesser punishments pleading the murders were committed in "sudden and grave provocation" rather than as planned murders, activists say. "It becomes the community sanctioning the crime because of the tribal and feudal system," said leading human rights activist and lawyer Zia Awan. Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider said: "The law is going to be amended to end this unIslamic practice. And those who commit murders in the name of honour killings should be hanged." But activists see no hope of change unless the system that fosters the custom is dismantled. "It will go on until we get rid of the male dominated system. The women will never be liberated until society is rid of the curse of feudalism," activist Taufeeq said.
