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Pakistani woman burned daughter alive over marriage dispute Pakistani woman burned daughter alive over marriage dispute
(about 3 hours later)
A woman in Pakistan burned her 17-year-old daughter alive as punishment for marrying against the family’s wishes, the latest in a series of honour killings that result in the deaths of nearly 1,000 women every year in the conservative Muslim country. A young Pakistani woman who was burned to death by her family on Wednesday for running away and marrying without their permission had been tricked into returning home by her mother’s promise to organise a proper wedding ceremony, her husband hassaid.
Police said Zeenat Rafiq’s mother, Parveen, tied her to a cot and drenched her in kerosene before setting her on fire on Wednesday. Neighbours in the working-class area of Lahore came running when they heard screaming. But Nighat Bibi, who lives nearby, said family members kept them from entering the house. Seventeen-year-old Zeenat Rafiq was doused with petrol and set on fire by her mother, Perveen, in a neighbourhood of Lahore. The mother reportedly made no attempt to hide her crime, shouting to neighbours that she had killed her daughter for supposedly dishonouring her family.
When the police arrived they found Zeenat’s charred body near a staircase. Her mother was arrested soon after. Zeenat ran away with and married Hassan Khan last week, angering her Punjabi family who were furious that she had married an ethnic Pashtun without permission.
The victim’s husband, Hassan Khan, told reporters the pair had been “in love since our school days” but Zeenat’s family had rejected several marriage proposals, forcing them to elope last month. He showed an affidavit of consent signed by his wife before a magistrate. He also displayed photos on his phone of a smiling Zeenat wearing a red dress. In a television interview with Geo News, Khan said his wife had been duped into returning home. “After living with me for four days following our marriage, her family contacted us and promised they would throw us a proper wedding party after eight days,” he said.
Sheikh Hammad, a local police official, said the mother confessed to killing her daughter with the help of her son, Ahmar. He quoted the woman as saying: “I don’t have any regrets.” Another police officer, Ibadat Nisar, said the body showed signs of beating and strangulation. “Zeenat was unwilling to go back to her home and told me that she would be killed by her family, but later agreed when one of her uncles guaranteed her safety.
He told BBC Urdu: “Her mother has confessed to the crime but we find it hard to believe that a 50-year-old woman committed this act all by herself with no help from the family members.” “After two days, she called me and said that her family had gone back on their word and asked me to come to get her, but I told her to wait for the promised eight days. Then she was killed.”
Related: Pakistan PM promises tougher stance on 'honour' killingsRelated: Pakistan PM promises tougher stance on 'honour' killings
Hundreds of women are killed each year in Pakistan – often by their own family members – for violating the country’s conservative norms regarding love and marriage. Sex outside of marriage is seen by many Pakistanis as a stain on the honour of the woman’s entire family, one that can only be removed by killing her. Lahore police arrested Zeenat’s mother and said they were looking for her brother, who had recently flown in from Dubai.
Last week, a schoolteacher, Maria Bibi, was set on fire for refusing to marry a man twice her age. The prime suspect is the father of the man she refused to marry, who is being held in custody along with four other suspected attackers. At their two-bedroom home in a low-income southern neighbourhood of Lahore, the family remained defiant.
A month earlier, police arrested 13 members of a local tribal council who allegedly strangled a girl and set her on fire for helping a friend elope. The charred body of 17-year-old Ambreen Riasat was found in a burnt-out van. Perveen’s younger sister Naseem told AFP: “After killing her daughter, Perveen went out on the street, took off her shawl and started beating herself on her chest, shouting: ‘People! I have killed my daughter for misbehaving and giving our family a bad name.’
Khan said her mother and uncle had visited her three days ago to try to persuade her to return home for a marriage ceremony with the family, so she would not be branded an eloper. He recalled his wife telling him: “Don’t let me go, they will kill me.” “My sister declared a long time ago she would not allow her daughter to marry a Pashtun,” she said.
The case has attracted the interest of Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab. In February Sharif’s brother, the prime minister Nawaz Sharif, pledged to close a loophole under Islamic law that allows many perpetrators of so-called “honour” killings to go free.
Under current laws family members are allowed to forgive the killer, forcing prosecutors to drop even the most watertight case.
It often leads to killers walking free in situations where entire families agree that a daughter has brought shame on them.
The government has not yet honoured Sharif’s pledge, which was made in the run-up to Pakistan’s second-ever Oscar win for a short documentary on “honour” killings called A Girl in the River.
Experts say such murders often go unreported. But the death of Zeenat was the third to hit the headlines in the past three months.
Last week Maria Sadaqat, a 19-year-old woman, was reportedly lynched and burned to death by people in her village near the hill station resort of Murree, near Islamabad. She was killed because she had refused to accept the proposal of the already married son of the owner of the school where she taught.
In April a 16-year-old girl from another area near the capital was murdered for allegedly helping another couple to elope. Police said Ambreen Riasat was drugged, suffocated and then put in the back of a van which was set alight.
It is thought that several hundred women are murdered each year in Pakistan by family members who believe their honour and standing in the community has been damaged by their daughters.