The brother of Qandeel Baloch, whose risqué social media posts both titillated and appalled conservative Pakistan, today admitted to strangling her in a crime that reignited debate about so-called “honour killings” in the South Asian nation.
Advertisement
In his confession, he described how he drugged Qandeel before strangling her to death.
“The police arrested Muhammad Wasim, brother of Qandeel Baloch, for killing his sister late on Saturday”, Multan City police chief Azhar Akram said.
Baloch had stirred controversy by posting pictures online of herself with a prominent Muslim cleric. She wasn’t aware I was killing her. “It was around 10.45pm when I gave her a tablet [.] and then killed her”.
Meanwhile, arrangements are being made to send Qandeel’s body to her hometown of Shah Saddardin in Dera Ghazi Khan for burial.
According to reports, Baloch had earlier claimed of receiving threats from her family to quit modelling and had also asked for security for the same.
The social media star, who has been dubbed the nation’s Kim Kardashian, posted one last message to her almost 750,000 followers on Facebook on Monday, July 4. Hundreds of women are murdered for “honour” every year in Pakistan. “Now everybody will remember me with honor that I have provided relief to my parents and brothers who were suffering for the last two decades because of her”, he said, as quoted by The Express Tribune.
“She supported all of us, including my son who killed her”, Mohammad Azeem told reporters, according to Dawn newspaper.
After news of the killing surfaced, Baloch’s brother is now on the run, and the case of the social media star is being investigated by police. She is confirmed to have been killed by her own brother for not following their social norms.
Advertisement
Perhaps Baloch put it best in a now-haunting tweet posted shortly before her death, “As a women we must stand up for ourselves”.
