‘Honour’ Killing?: Teenaged girl killed in suspicious circumstances

Girl died while cleaning a pistol.

MANSEHRA:

A teenaged girl was killed in suspicious circumstances in Gari Habibullah on Monday evening. Police quoted Muhammad Mushtaq of village Karnol Bani as saying that his daughter Iqra Bibi, 14, went to her paternal aunt’s house in the neighbourhood where her aunt asked her to clean a licensed pistol. While she was cleaning the loaded pistol, it went off accidentally and a bullet stuck in the chamber pierced through her chest, killing her on the spot. The police are investigating the girl’s death. Locals have contested the father’s version of the incident and demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident. It is common to attribute murders of women to accidental deaths.

Last year, the death of Rehnaz Bibi who was shot by her cousin in Kakotri village, Haripur, was also reported as an accident. It was later proved to be a murder when the girl’s body was exhumed last week.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 8^th, 2012.