Pakistani Social Media Star Murdered By Brother In ‘Honour Killing’

Baloch’s brother, Waseem Azeem, spoke at a police press conference on Saturday after being arrested under suspicion of the crime where he admitted in no uncertain terms that he killed his sister for violating his family’s very conservative social norms.

The model shared her new selfies and video with the scholar on her Facebook account, which went viral on the social media. Sources have said that her brother wanted her to quit modelling due to which she had escaped to Multan to stay away from her family.

Pakistani model and Internet sensation Qandeel Baloch was killed by her brother Wasim late on Friday. “I gave her a tablet and then strangled her”, Dawn news quoted Waseem as saying.

Honor killing is commonplace in many cultures. In Pakistan, the killings are on the rise, with almost 1,100 women killed in 2015, according to the BBC.

The killing has reignited debate in Pakistan with many residents calling for an anti-honour killing law, aimed at closing a loophole that allows family members to forgive the killers.

Such killings are considered murder.

This year alone, a schoolteacher, Maria Bibi, was set on fire for refusing to marry a man twice her age.

She offered to do a striptease if Pakistan won a cricket world competition, and has been compared to the USA reality star Kim Kardashian. This report by Nabila Ghazzanfar, a Punjab Police spokeswoman strongly contradicts the earlier report of her being strangled.

Qandeel Baloch, believed to be in her twenties, had travelled with her family from Karachi to Muzzafarabad for the recent Eid holiday.

“She wasn’t rich”, Tahir said.

Regional police chief Sultan Taimuri said authorities will seek the maximum punishment for Azeem, without providing further details.

Baloch, whose real name was Fauzia Azeem, was buried Sunday.

Baloch became famous through her tireless self-promotion and suggestive “selfies” posted on social media and had amassed tens of thousands of followers. “As a women [sic] we must stand up for each other”.

An Al Jazeera report stated that an initial post-mortem of Qandeel Baloch’s body showed her nose and mouth “had been pinned shut before she died, blocking off her airways”.

Qavi maintained that he only met with her to discuss the teachings of Islam.