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Pakistani police are searching for some 30 members of a tribal council who ordered a teenage couple to be electrocuted by their families as a so-called “honor killing” after they eloped.
The couple — a 17-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl — were ethnic Pashtuns from Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi who allegedly ran away together in August, police said.
The tribal council, known as a tribal jirga, ordered the couple’s death by electrocution after relatives of the couple put the case before them.
They were tied to a wooden bed and electrocuted by family members who carried out the tribal council’s orders.
They were killed, despite an agreement that had been reached by the two families for the couple to be married, after the tribal council refused to recognize the marriage agreement.
Police said the fathers and two uncles of the couple had been arrested in the case, but members of the tribal council had gone into hiding.
Copyright (c) 2015. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.