Carnal Reason

MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) — Nazir Ahmed appears calm and unrepentant as he recounts how he slit the throats of his three young daughters and their 25-year old stepsister to salvage his family’s “honor” — a crime that shocked Pakistan.

The 40-year old laborer, speaking to The Associated Press in police detention as he was being shifted to prison, confessed to just one regret — that he didn’t murder the stepsister’s alleged lover, too.
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Speaking to AP from the back of a police pickup truck late Tuesday as he was moved to a prison in the city of Multan, Ahmed showed no contrition. Appearing disheveled but composed, he said he killed Muqadas because she had committed adultery, and his daughters because he didn’t want them to do the same when they grew up.

He said he bought a butcher knife and a machete after midday prayers on Friday and hid them in the house where he carried out the killings.

“I thought the younger girls would do what their eldest sister had done, so they should be eliminated,” he said, his hands cuffed, his face unshaven. “We are poor people and we have nothing else to protect but our honor.”
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Ahmed, who did not resist arrest, was unrepentant.

“I told the police that I am an honorable father and I slaughtered my dishonored daughter and the three other girls,” he said. “I wish that I get a chance to eliminate the boy she ran away with and set his home on fire.”
CNN

The conflict between militant Islam and the West is, I think, ultimately about the role of women. The Islamists value women as property, and don’t want to let the slaves get away.

Posted on December 29th, 2005 by pwyll
Filed under: politics, religion