Two teenage sisters have been shot dead in Pakistan – because they danced in the rain.
Noor Basra, 15, and Noor Sheza, 16, were killed after a clip of the cavorting caused outrage in their ultra-conservative town.
Their mother Noshehra was also shot. The three were killed by five gunmen.
Police suspect that the murders were ordered by the sisters’ stepbrother to restore the family’s “honour”.
The sisters were filmed six months ago break-dancing as the heavens opened.
They were wearing traditional shalwar kameez trouser suits and green and purple headscarves.
One flashes a smile in the clip, which has gone viral on the internet.
The girls were filmed running around with two younger children outside the family’s stone bungalow in Chilas in the deprived northern region of Gilgit.
Their older brother is suing stepbrother Khutore and the gunmen, who are all thought to be on the run.
The murders follow the scandal last year of the case of four women who were killed on the orders of tribal elders for singing and dancing with men at a wedding party in the remote north-western Pakistan village of Kohistan.
The group of clerics, called a Jirga, condemned the women to death after decreeing they had stained their families’ names by “fornication.”
Under strict Sharia law, men and women are not allowed to dance together.
However, it is always the woman, not the man, who is punished.
About a thousand so-called honour killings take place in Pakistan every year, say women’s rights group the Aurat Foundation.
Human Rights Watch, which campaigns against atrocities worldwide, has called for tougher measures against tribal elders who condemn women to death.
The news of the latest deaths emerged today as David Cameron became the first head of government to hold face-to-face talks with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif since his election in May.
Mr Sharif’s victory could translate into a “golden moment” for Pakistan, the PM declared.
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