A mother has taken the life of her 19-year-old daughter for running away to marry her boyfriend.
Parveen Bibi confessed to killing her daughter
A court in Pakistan sentenced a mother to death on Monday for
burning her daughter alive as punishment for marrying without the
family's consent. Parveen Bibi confessed before a special court in the
city of Lahore to killing her daughter in June for what she said was
"bringing shame to the family".
Police said 18-year-old Zeenat Rafiq married Hassan Khan and eloped to live with his family a week before she was killed.
The court sentenced Rafiq's brother Anees to life in prison after
the evidence showed her mother and brother had first beaten her, before
her mother threw kerosene on her and set her on fire.
After Rafiq's murder in a poor district of Lahore, none of her
relatives sought to claim her body, police said, leaving her husband's
family to bury her charred remains after dark in a graveyard near the
city.
Violence against women is rampant in Pakistan, according to the
independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Citing media reports,
it said there were more than 1,100 "honour killings" in 2015.
Pakistan's parliament passed legislation against "honour killings"
in October, three months after the murder of outspoken social media star
Qandeel Baloch. Her brother was arrested in relation to her strangling
death in July.
Perceived damage to a family's "honour" can involve eloping, fraternizing with men or other breaches of conservative values.
In most cases, the victim is a woman and the killer is a relative
who escapes punishment by seeking forgiveness for the crime from family
members.
Under the new law, relatives can forgive convicts in the case of a
death sentence, but they would still have to face a mandatory life
sentence.
-Reuters
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