A Pakistani social media celebrity whose selfies polarised the deeply conservative Muslim country has been murdered by her brother in a suspected honour killing, officials said on Saturday, prompting shock and revulsion.
A police official said Qandeel Baloch was strangled to death by her brother in an apparent incident of honour killing. She was killed in Multan on Friday, the police said, adding that the brother, Wasim, was now on the run.
Baloch’s brother was upset over the “disrespect” she had caused to the family, said the police.
Baloch, whose real name was Fauzia Azeem, was little known until recently, when she offended many conservatives by posting pictures of herself with Mufti Qavi, a prominent cleric. She said the two of them enjoyed soft drinks and cigarettes together during the daylight hours in Ramzan. The pictures and allegations caused a scandal in conservative Pakistan, and the government removed Qavi from the official moon-sighting committee that determines when Ramzan starts and ends in accordance with the Islamic lunar calendar. Baloch had said Qavi told her he wanted to see her face before the committee met to determine the Id ul-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramzan.
Qavi denied the allegations, saying he only met with her to discuss the teachings of Islam. Earlier in July, Baloch sought protection from government, saying she was receiving anonymous death threats. However, the department concerned refused to entertain the request.
Up to 100 officers were gathered outside her family’s home in Muzzafarabad, an AFP reporter there said. Five ambulances were also parked nearby. “My daughter was innocent, we are innocent, we want justice, why was my daughter killed ” Baloch’s father Azeem Ahmad told reporters there. The police later registered a murder case against her brother based on her father’s written complaint, in which he accused his son of killing his daughter for honour because “his son wanted her to quit showbiz”.
Hundreds of women are murdered for “honour” every year in Pakistan. Filmmaker Sharmeemn Obaid-Chinoy, whose documentary on honour killings won an Oscar earlier this year, slammed Baloch’s murder as symptomatic of an “epidemic” of violence against women in Pakistan.
News of the murder was trending on social media in Pakistan, with liberal users praising Baloch’s bravery, but some conservatives, including users identified as women, condemning her relentless self-promotion. In one typical comment, Twitter user @JiaAli wrote: “Someone had to do it. She was a disgrace.”
But Facebook user Zaair Hussain said: “RIP Qandeel Baloch. You made us laugh, and you made us applaud,” adding that history would remember her as a “provocateur”. Baloch shot to fame in Pakistan in 2014 after a video of her pouting at the camera and asking “How em looking ” went viral. Her defiance of tradition and defence of liberal views won her many admirers among Pakistan’s overwhelmingly young population. But in a country where women have fought for rights for decades, and acid attacks and honour, killings remain commonplace.
