KOHISTAN, Pakistan, June 4 (UPI) -- Tribal leaders denied reports that five women, including four pictured singing and dancing with men at a wedding party in Kohistan, Pakistan, were executed.
Two officials said the women were alive and safe in their homes and denied that a jirga -- a tribal assembly of elders -- had sentenced the women to death, the Express Tribune reported Sunday.
Muhammad Afzal, a brother of two men accused of shooting a video of the dancing women and posting it on the Internet, said they were executed May 30 along with a sister of one of them.
Police officials in the area also denied there were executions.
A judge scheduled a hearing into the matter for Wednesday and noted that Pakistan's Supreme Court has determined verdicts issued by private jirgas are illegal, Dawn News reported Sunday. The judge also directed that the women, if alive, should be made available for the hearing.
Afzal said all five women were executed by their relatives, Dawn News reported.
He said the women were held captive for a month and tortured before they were killed.
Media outlets last week said the jirga also ordered the execution of Afzal's two brothers, Bin Yasir and Gul Nazar, along with the women in the video, but the men had fled the area.
The Express Tribune said police filed the documents necessary to begin an investigation of the brothers.
