© AFP
Nazir Hussain, 35, from Pakistan's central Punjab province, shot dead his two sisters on Friday. The two victims, 22-year-old Kosar Bibi and 28-year-old Gulzar Bibi, were set to get married the next day.
"The brother shot dead both the sisters yesterday and fled the site," police officer Mehar Riaz told AFP. "It is a simple case of killing for honor."
Hussain had objected to the nuptials, wanting the women to marry within the extended family rather than choose their own spouses, Riaz said.
The father of the family, Atta Mohammed, said his son had "ruined my family, he destroyed us, he destroyed everything," the Express Tribune reported.
Hussain is now on the run, and a police search is underway.
The shootings are the latest in a string of "honor killings" in Pakistan, committed by family members who believe a female relative has damaged the family's honor. Such reasons can include women who marry for love, elope, fraternize with men, or commit any other violation against conservative rules about female modesty.
It comes just two weeks after Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch was strangled to death by her brother. The sibling said he had "no regrets" about the murder, stating that he killed his sister because of her liberal views and social activity, including a video which showed her sitting on the lap of a prominent Muslim cleric.
Just one month prior to Baloch's murder, a pregnant Pakistani woman who chose to marry for love rather than take part in an arranged marriage had her throat slit by relatives.
Also in June, a 16-year-old girl was killed by her mother for marrying a man for love. Soon after, a couple in Lahore was killed after marrying without their family's consent.
Following the murder of Baloch, Pakistan's ruling party announced a plan to pass legislation against honor killings.
Around 500 women are reported murdered in honor killings each year in Pakistan, though activists say the true number is higher, as many deaths are thought to go unreported.
is missing here?
Murder for 'honor?'
These women represent an economic stake in the family future wealth. If the marriage is among extended known individuals, the family wealth augment each others, but outside to an unknown represents a subtraction of wealth by the removal of a possible alliance.
The men of the family must be involved in some economic gain to act with such vileness. Perhaps there is some return by then an expectation that the brothers of the bride in the arranged marriage would gain a position in the extended business alliance? Or themselves an arranged marriage within the economic group? There has to be a reason.