3 stoned, shot for adultery
2007-03-15 17:08
Peshawar - Pro-Taliban extremists in a Pakistani tribal area stoned and then shot dead two men and a woman for alleged adultery, said officials and witnesses on Thursday.
About 800 tribesmen watched the executions by the Lashkar-i-Islam (Army of Islam) group on Wednesday in the Khyber tribal district on the border with Afghanistan, they said.
The trio was tied with ropes, and tribal elders and other men gathered at a patch of open ground and stoned them. Two masked members of the hardline group then shot them with Kalashnikov rifles, said witnesses.
The killings are likely to fuel concern about the "Talibanisation" of parts of Pakistan and the introduction of Islamic sharia law, particularly in the tribal areas and in North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan.
"The Lashkar-i-Islam men caught them and after investigations it was proved that they were guilty of adultery," said a group on condition of anonymity.
'Illicit activities'
Members of the religious group, led by cleric Mangal Bagh, raided a house on Monday and abducted the three after local residents suspected them of "illicit" activities, said residents in the Bara region said.
The victims were named as Allah Noor and Shahzad while the woman was identified as Taslima.
The local administration said it did not intervene in the situation as the restive tribal agencies were semi-autonomous and Pakistani laws did not apply.
"We had reports about the killings, but we do not interfere in the matters related to tribal customs and traditions," said a tribal administration official.
Last year, 25 people died in street battles in Bara between mullahs who used illegal radio stations to preach rival versions of Islam.
One of the mullahs, Mufti Munir Shakir, is the spiritual leader of the Lashkar-i-Islami chief.
The latest killings come less than two months after two lovers were tied to trees and stoned to death by angry relatives in Donga Bonga village in central Punjab province, in a so-called "honour killing".