Family kills pregnant woman over ‘honour’

LAHORE: Family members slit the throat of a young mother who was pregnant with her second child for marrying against their will in Gujranwala, officials said Friday, the latest in a spate of so-called “honour killings”.

Muqaddas Bibi was in a relationship with her neighbour Shafiq. Two years ago, they eloped and contracted court-marriage in defiance of her family. Bibi’s family had harboured a grudge against Shafiq ever since.

While visiting a clinic in Butranwali on Thursday for a check-up, Bibi’s family approached her and convinced her to come home.

When she reached home, Aroop SHO Gohar Abbas said her father Bashir, mother Amna, brothers Adeel and Naseer slashed her throat with a sharp-edged weapon.

Abbas said that when the area police reached the house, they found Bibi’s body but her family had fled. The body was shifted to morgue for autopsy while forensic evidence was also collected from the scene.

Bibi had a 10-month old daughter and was seven months pregnant when she was killed, Abbas added.

The official said that a murder case has been registered while investigators were hunting for the suspects.

Hundreds of women are murdered by their relatives each year on the pretext of defending what is seen as family honour.

In May, a teenage girl was burnt alive in Abbottabad on orders of a jirga for allegedly helping her class-fellow elope with her beloved.

Last week 17- year-old Zeenat Bibi was burned alive in Lahore by her mother for marrying a man of her own choice in a case that sparked widespread condemnation.

It was swiftly followed by another killing, a couple shot dead in Lahore by the girl’s father for marrying without the family’s consent.

On Sunday a young girl was killed by her brother for insisting on marrying the man of her choice in Sialkot.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18^th, 2016.