Qandeel Baloch death: Father of Pakistani social media star says he wants to seek revenge

The Pakistani celebrity was brutally drugged and strangled by her brother

A self-described “modern day feminist”, Baloch said she wanted to inspire and be a voice for women who had been ”treated badly and dominated by society” (Reuters)

The grieving father of the Pakistani social media celebrity Qandeel Baloch who was brutally murdered by her brother has said he will be never be able to forgive his son and he wants to seek revenge.

Qandeel was drugged and strangled by her brother Waseem on the evening of 15 July at her family home in the Punjab province in Pakistan in the name of “honour”. She was 26.

Within hours Waseem had been arrested and had confessed to the murder in front of a news conference. He exhibited no remorse for his actions.

“I am proud of what I did. I drugged her first, then I killed her,” he told reporters. “Girls are born to stay at home and follow traditions. My sister never did that.”

“I am a drug addict but I was in my senses when I murdered her and I accept it with pride,” He also said. “Now everybody will remember me with honour that I have provided relief to my parents and brothers who were suffering for the last two decades because of her.”

But Qandeel’s father Azeem does not feel relief and is adamant that he will never be able to forgive his son.

“I shall not forgive. It is my desire to take revenge,” Azeem told CNN.

The social media star and model, who has been likened to Kim Kardashian-West, rose to fame in for posting bold, at times risqué photographs and confronting Conservative social taboos in Pakistan.

Azeem says both he and his wife were proud of Qandeel for her actions. ”Our daughter told us which TV channel we could watch her on,“ he said. ”I said to my wife, 'Let's watch her show.' We felt very happy to watch it. We saw her and said, 'She is our daughter.'“

A self-avowed “modern day feminist”, Baloch said she wanted to act as a voice and an inspiration for women who had been ”treated badly and dominated by society” and "give those girls who have been forcefully married" a positive message. Over the course of her career, she garnered tens of thousands of social media followers but also received threats for her voicing her forthright opinions.

In the aftermath of Qandeel’s death, prosecutors have invoked Section 311 of Pakistan's penal code, thus making the state a complainant in the case against her brother and meaning the court is in charge of choosing how to punish Baloch even if his family decides to forgive him. This course of action is relatively unusual for Pakistan and Azeem is keen for prosecutors to reinstate him as the complainant against his son.

If the State is the complainant in a so-called “honor killing”, under Pakistani law the maximum sentence which the court can grant is life in prison according to Akhram Sheikh, the President of the Pakistan Supreme Court Bar Association. Sheikh claims there have been cases in the past where, even with the State is a complainant, courts have granted pardons due to corrupt goings on within Pakistan’s legal system.

Azeem recently told BBC Urdu he wanted his son to be "shot on sight".

'Honour killings' are a problem in Pakistan. Nearly 1,000 women are killed by close relatives in Pakistan each year for challenging conservative approaches towards marriage and bringing “shame” upon their community.