13-year-old butchered for turning down marriage proposal

Cousins admit to murder, claim girl’s refusal was an ‘insult to family’.

FAISALABAD:

Police officials have arrested two brothers on charges of butchering a schoolgirl in the limits of Qadir Pur police station, Jhang on Wednesday.

According to details, Abdul Ghaffar’s sons Irfan and Ramzan abducted their 13-year-old cousin Samina Parveen while she was returning home from a tuition centre several days ago. Manzoor Ahmad, Parveen’s father said that his daughter had been kidnapped because she had refused a marriage proposal from her cousin.

“She was only a child. She was in class seven at the Government Girls Middle School Mauza Hajji Turbat Shah and they wanted me to marry her off,” he said.

The accused forcibly took Parveen to a nearby sugarcane field where they killed her and chopped her body to pieces.

Irfan and Ramzan also hid Parveen’s body in the sugarcane field to conceal the evidence of the crime and fled the scene. Ahmed said that he had been searching for his daughter for two days before police officials found the body.

Qadir Pur Police Station House Officer (SHO) Rana Nasir said that a case had been registered on the complaint of Manzoor Ahmad, the father of the deceased, and both the accused nominated in the FIR had now been arrested.

A post mortem report confirmed that Parveen’s death occurred due to excessive bleeding. “Her throat had been cut and she had been stabbed ten times. They also cut out her eyes and lips and cut off her limbs,” said Dr Bandial, at Allied Hospital.

Manzoor Ahmad told police officials that he was a landlord and owned 13 acres of land. Ahmed had two wives and Parveen was one of his three daughters from his first marriage.

“Irfan and Ramzan were my daughter’s first cousins. Ramzan is a 9th grade student in Government Secondary School, while Irfan is studying in first year in Government Degree College Mauza Hajji Turbat Shah,” he said.

My brother-in-law Abdul Ghaffar had asked for my daughter’s hand for his older son Irfan but she refused. “She said that she wanted to study further and in any case she was only thirteen so I told them it wouldn’t be possible at this time,” he said.

“Irfan and his family tried to pressurise us and there were some squabbles over the matter but my daughter kept refusing to accept him. They took this as an insult and kidnapped her,” he said.

Police officials said that Irfan and his brother confessed to abducting the girl and killing her. “She kept refusing to marry my brother even though we had asked for her hand. She had no right to do that. It was an insult to our family,” Ramzan told police.

“The autopsy report revealed that Irfan tied Parveen’s legs and hands with a rope, while his younger brother beheaded her and the brothers then mutilated the corpse,” Dr Bandial told police.

(Read: Reported cases of violence against women show a marked rise)

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2011.