QUETTA: The Balochistan High Court on Monday granted bail to tribal leader Sardar Sherbaz Satakzai, who faced arrest in the Dagari honour killing case where a couple was shot dead in the name of “honour.”
A single-member bench of Justice Iqbal Kasi of the BHC approved the bail and ordered the accused to submit surety bonds of Rs500,000. Satakzai had approached the high court after the lower court rejected his bail.
The incident surfaced when a video circulated on social media, showing more than a dozen men gathered in a remote mountainous desert with SUVs and pickup trucks parked nearby. In the footage, the group ordered the woman to stand with her back to them before a man pulled out a gun and shot her. He then turned the weapon on the man and killed him.
According to police surgeon Dr. Ayesha, the woman sustained seven gunshot wounds while the man suffered nine. Police alleged that a local tribal jirga ordered the killings in Degari, on the outskirts of Quetta.
As the video went viral, the Balochistan government registered a case under terrorism charges. Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti condemned the incident as “heinous.”
Investigators also found the woman’s family complicit, naming her brother, Jalal Satakzai, as one of the prime suspects. Another video showed the woman’s mother, Gul Jan, justifying the murders as “Baloch tribal customs.” She insisted that the tribe’s elders committed no unlawful act and denied their involvement in the decision.
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Authorities registered the case under Sections 302 (murder), 149 (unlawful assembly), 148 (rioting while armed with a deadly weapon), 147 (rioting) of the Pakistan Penal Code, and the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.
