Khairpur Karo kari : Jirga slaps fine on man, orders family to leave village

KHAIRPUR: A Jirga in Naro taluka of Khairpur slapped five lac rupees fine over a youth and declaring two girls of the family Vani under allegations of Karo-kari, ARY News reported on Tuesday.

The allegations of Karo-Kari is a type of premeditated honour killing, which originated in rural areas of Sindh. Those accused of it are thought to have brought dishonour to their family by engaging in illicit pre-marital or extra-marital relations.

An informal village court in Naro imposed Rs. 5,00,000 fine on Rahim Bux Bhambhro in Torian village over alleged illicit relations with a married woman of Shikarpur.

The village court, comprised of influential people of the area, also ordered the family to concede two of their girls as Vani and ordered them to leave the village.

Vani is a practice in rural areas of Sindh and Punjab, in which the family of a person accused of a serious crime gives its girl(s) in marriage to the aggrieved family to prevent or settle a blood feud.

Rahim Bux Bhambhro while rejecting the Jirga decision held a protest with the women and children of his family and alleged that influentials of the village Karam Bhambhro, Khadim Hussain Bhambhro, Gohar Khan Bhambhro and Faiz Mohammad Bhambhro have used the Jirga to settle their personal score.

“When I demanded money, they owed to me, they accused me of this offence,” he said. “They are now issuing threats to us,” he further said.

He appealed for protection to the family and justice to police and other authorities.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Supreme Court of Pakistan in a landmark ruling in January this year held the system of jirgas and panchayats in violation of Pakistan’s international commitments under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

These commitments placed a responsibility on Pakistan to ensure that everyone had access to courts or tribunals and is treated equally before the law, a verdict authored by then chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar said.

The decision came on a petition moved by the National Commission on Status of Women (NCSW).

The genesis of the issue raised in the case lies in the reality that in today’s age, informal custom-driven parallel legal systems in the form of ‘council of elders’ exist in former tribal areas as well as in some rural areas of KP, Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan.