In the barren village of Dagari in Balochistan's Nasirabad district, a young couple dared to dream. Bano Satakzai and Ehsan Samalani chose each other as life partners, a right even religion grants. But tragically, tradition denied them that right. Their voices were brutally silenced in cold blood.

They were killed in what is grotesquely called an "honour killing". Their only crime was love, the audacity to assert autonomy over their own lives. But in parts of Pakistan where tradition outweighs the law and family pride is considered more sacred than human life, such defiance is met not with dialogue but with bullets and blades.

The murder of Bano and Ehsan is not an anomaly. It is yet another entry in the long, blood-soaked ledger of honour-based violence in Pakistan. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, hundreds are killed every year, the overwhelming majority of them women, in the name of honour. The term itself is a moral contradiction. There is no honour in........

© The Express Tribune