LAHORE, Pakistan, June 9 (UPI) — A Pakistani young woman was burned to death Wednesday by her mother and brother, because she married without her family’s consent, police said.
Zeenat Rafique, 18, had eloped a week earlier and moved away, but was lured back to her parents’ home expecting a reconciliation, but was tied to a bed, covered in gasoline and set on fire, Punjab police representative Nabeela Ghazanfar said.
Police said there signs she had been tortured and strangled and are investigating whether she was alive when she was burned.
The mother, Parveen Bibi, was found in the family house with the body. She turned herself in, showing no regret, police said. Police are searching for Rafique’s brother, Ahmer.
“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,” Police Superintendent Ibadat Nisar said.
The girl’s husband, Hassan Khan, told the BBC that when Rafique announced the elopement to her family, “they beat her so severely she was bleeding from her mouth and nose.”
Khan said she was afraid to go when her family promised to reconcile and give them a wedding reception.
“She said ‘they are not going to spare me’. She didn’t want to go but my family convinced her,” he said. “How were we to know they would kill her like this?”
It is the third such honor killing in a month in Pakistan, where nearly 1,100 women were killed by relatives there last year for going against the wishes of their family, the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) notes. Many cases go unreported.
