Adultery case puts focus on tribal justice
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ISLAMABAD -- A couple have been sentenced by a tribal court to be stoned to death for alleged adultery in northwest Pakistan, local residents and officials said.
The man involved, Zarkat Khan, apparently managed to run away, while the woman is in the custody of the tribal court, according to local residents. The incident occurred in a remote area called Kala Dhaka, or Black Mountain, that is part of the province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, which runs adjacent to Afghanistan.
The death sentence, handed down last month, will be carried out once the man is found, said a member of the tribal court, known as a jirga which supposedly decided cases according to Islamic law. The two were married, but not to each other.
The woman, whose name is being withheld at the request of human rights groups, is now being kept prisoner in a nearby village, according to campaigners and several locals, though there are several conflicting stories about her whereabouts. She is believed to have three children.
"As usual, it is the woman who is made to bear the brunt of such atrocious barbarism, injustice and inhuman, un-Islamic sentences," said the Woman's Action Forum, a Pakistani non-governmental organization, in a statement. "Why is the provincial law enforcement system neither de jure nor de facto functional? Where are the women's protection mechanisms and institutions?"
Some locals believe the verdict will not be carried out, or, if it is, there will be some quicker form of execution.
"We burnt down the man's house, as per our tradition," said Maroof Khan, who allegedly sat on the jirga that decided the case, though he denied that. "When we get hold of them, we'll kill them, there's no doubt about that. It was a clear-cut case. This is our custom. We will just shoot them. Finished."
First Published July 19, 2010 12:00 am
