6 of family gunned down in Pakistan for 'honour'

In a gruesome case of honour killing in Pakistan, six members of a family, including two women and a child, were gunned down in their sleep in the country's southern Sindh province, police said on Tuesday.

According to the police, the father and relatives of a girl, Nasreen Brohi, belonging to the Brohi tribe, entered the house of Murtaza Rind late on Monday night and opened fire on the sleeping family, killing him and five others.

Rind's wife Nasreen Brohi, who had contracted a free will marriage, managed to escape the massacre in the dark, they said.

Those killed included Rind's two brothers, two sisters and a child.

"She (Nasreen) is now in police protection and the search is on for her father Rafiq Brohi and his brothers who are suspected to have carried out the killings in the name of honour," senior police official Naeem Sheikh said.

Nasreen told the media that she eloped with Rind in January, 2018.

She returned home after a deal between the Brohi and Rind tribes by a tribal council under which her husband paid Rs 1.2 million to her father as fine.

According to Nasreen, her family sold her off to the Jatoi tribe from where she managed to escape and reach her husband's home and they were living happily.

She said apparently her father and relatives did not forgive her and eventually attacked her home.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, nearly 1,000 women and girls in deeply conservative Pakistan are being killed every year for allegedly bringing shame on their family.

The rights group says that the women are killed for being accused of having illicit relations and marrying without the family's consent. Most of them are killed by their brothers and husbands, the group added.