ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities have arrested 11 suspects for their involvement in the recent “honor killing” of a couple in the southwestern Balochistan province, Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti said on Monday after a disturbing video of the incident went viral online last week.

The provincial government sprang into action on Sunday after a video clip, which shows a couple in Balochistan being shot at by armed men for marrying of their choice, sparked nationwide outrage and calls for bringing the perpetrators to justice. 

Bugti had taken to social media on Sunday to announce that one person had been arrested in connection with the incident. Speaking at a press conference in Karachi, Balochistan government spokesman Shahid Rind had said the incident captured in the viral video had taken place in Balochistan around Eid Al-Adha. 

“Update: So far, 11 suspects have been arrested and the operation is ongoing,” the Balochistan chief minister wrote on X.

“All those involved will be brought to justice. The state stands with the oppressed.”

So-called honor killings are common in Pakistan, where family members and relatives sometimes kill women and men who don’t follow local traditions and culture or decide to marry of their own choice.

Rind had said on Sunday that families of both victims had not reported the incident, vowing that the government would register a case over the incident with the state as a complainant.

The couple had been executed on the orders of a jirga, a council of tribal elders, according to reports. Rind said authorities had taken the suspects’ data after their identification through the viral video clip.

The incident also prompted condemnation from the Pakistan Ulema Council (PUC), a group of clerics and religious scholars, who said the killing of a woman or a man in the name of honor is “un-Islamic, anti-Sharia and terrorism.”

The PUC said “terrorism” cases should be filed against people involved in such incidents.

“Pakistan Ulema Council demands of Chief Minister Balochistan, Governor Balochistan and IGP Balochistan to arrest the culprits who killed a woman under ‘honor killing’ as depicted in a viral video on social media,” the council said in a statement on Sunday. 

QUETTA: Five people were killed while seven others were injured in Pakistan’s southwestern Killa Abdullah district on Sunday after an armed clash between two tribes, a senior official said. 

The clash broke out on Sunday evening between members of the ethnic Pashtun tribes of Achakzai and Kakar, lasting for several hours before tribal elders, the paramilitary Levies force and Frontier Corps (FC) Balochistan brokered a ceasefire between them.

“Five people have been killed and seven injured in the latest clashes that erupted between Achakzai and Kakar tribesmen in Killa Abdullah district,” Shahzaib Kakar, commissioner of Quetta Division, told Arab News on Sunday. 

He said members of both tribes were involved in “an old tribal dispute,” adding that both sides agreed to a ceasefire after security forces arrived in the area. 

Hayat Achakzai, a local journalist based in Killa Abdullah district, said clashes broke out at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday when members of both tribes came face to face at the district’s Tot Adda area.

“Both tribes were engaged in a dispute since March 2025 following a motorbike snatching,” Achakzai said. “They were chasing each other for the last two weeks but today met with an armed clash.”

Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province by land mass but its most backward one by almost all social and economic indicators, has a strong tribal system with powerful chieftains. 

Disputes between rival tribes over honor, land and decades-old feuds are common here, often resulting in armed clashes. 

Ethnic Baloch militant groups have launched a low-level insurgency against the state for years in Balochistan, accusing Islamabad of exploiting the province’s mineral resources and denying locals a share in it.

The government denies the allegations and points to health, development and educational projects that it says have been launched to empower the people of Balochistan.