4 women killed for dancing with men in Pak: Reports

Islamabad, Jun 3: Four

were condemned to death by a

jirga or council for dancing and singing with men at a wedding in northern

, TV news channels reported on Sunday. However, authorities refuted the news reports, describing them as baseless. Interior Minister Rehman Malik ordered a judicial inquiry into the reported killing of the four women as punishment for dancing with men at a wedding in Kohistan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

There was, however, confusion about the number of women reportedly killed. Geo News channel reported that four women were killed while The Express Tribune reported on its website that the number of victims was five. The fifth woman was the sister of one the condemned women, the report said. A jirga in Kohistan had condemned four women and two men to death after the emergence of a mobile phone video that purportedly showed them dancing together. Reports said the jirga had decided they should be killed for 'dishonouring' their families.

A cleric was arrested in connection with the incident, although he claimed he had not issued any fatwa to kill those people. The two men condemned by the jirga have reportedly fled the region. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain described the news reports about the killing of women as 'totally wrong and baseless'. He said he had talked to the Kohistan district administration chief and the local DIG Hazara, and the latter too refused to acknowledge the reports to be true.

PTI