ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 29 (UPI) -- Police said eight tribesmen in a remote Pakistani village were detained to prevent the execution of six people charged with disrespecting gender segregation.
A local official in Kohistan district said officers were dispatched to Seertaiy to rescue four females who were locked in a room and being starved after a tribal council condemned them and two men to death, The Express Tribune reported Tuesday.
A jirga -- a tribal assembly of elders -- condemned the six to death after they allegedly were caught on videotape singing and dancing together at a wedding party in Bando Baidar village.
"We have detained eight people [from the women's tribe]. And they have given us a written guarantee that the women would not be harmed," Hazara Division Commissioner Khalid Khan Umerzai said.
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Umerzai said he viewed the video that showed the women and the men dancing and singing together.
"Judging by the local tribal culture, it is objectionable," he said. "The women have violated their tribal norms … . But the law does not allow [anybody] to condemn them to death."
He said the women were safe at their parents' homes and the men fled.
Human rights campaigners condemned the jirga's decision issued Sunday. The Sahara Development Foundation, Human Development Organization, Rural Development Project, Integrated Human Rights Network, Aurat Foundation and Aurat Association all called on the government to ensure the six people weren't harmed.
The organization also demanded the village's administration move the women elsewhere for their protection and called for a ban on the jirga system they said was a key factor of discrimination against women in Pakistani society.
