Relatives slit the throat of a young mother who was pregnant with her
second child after she married against their will in eastern Pakistan,
officials said on Friday, June 17, the latest in a spate of so-called
“honour killings”.
Muqaddas
Bibi, 22, married Taufiq Ahmed three years ago in defiance of her
family, who considered a marriage for love – rather than an arranged
marriage – shameful, police investigator Mohammad Arshad told AFP.
Bibi’s ties with her family were severed after the marriage, Arshad
said, but her mother and brother allegedly approached her at a clinic
where she was having a check-up on Thursday and convinced her to come
home, saying they accepted her decision.
Local police station chief Gohar Abbas said that when Bibi reached her
parents’ house, her father, brother and mother cut her throat with a
knife and she died on the spot.
Bibi had a 10-month old daughter and was seven months pregnant when she was killed, he added.
Abbas said that her family fled from their house after the murder in the
village of Buttaranwali, some 75 kilometres (46 miles) north of Punjab
provincial capital Lahore. Police are hunting for them and have already
detained another relative for inciting the killing, he said.
Hundreds of women are murdered by their relatives in Pakistan each year
on the pretext of defending what is seen as family ‘honor.’ Last week
16-year-old Zeenat Bibi was killed in Lahore by her mother for marrying a
man of her own choice in a case that sparked condemnation throughout
the country.
It was swiftly followed by another killing, of a couple in Lahore, who
married without their family’s consent. On Sunday a young girl was
killed by her brother for insisting on marrying the man of her choice in
Sialkot.
Source: Newsweek Pakistan/AFP
