A 25-year-old pregnant Pakistani woman has been stoned to death by some members of her family for marrying the man of her choice.
According to Time magazine, the woman was killed outside a courthouse in Lahore on Tuesday. She was on her way to contest an abduction case her family had filed against her husband.
Her father was subsequently arrested on murder charges with the police investigator adding that this was a “heinous crime.”
Although arranged marriages are the norm among more conservative Pakistanis, stonings in public are rare.
The woman in question has been named as Farzana Parveen who was just 25 years of age. She married Mohammad Iqbal following a lengthy engagement but against her family’s wishes.
Her family waited for Farzana at the main gate of the court when she arrived with her husband. They apparently tried to snatch her from him, beating her and throwing stones at her from a nearby construction site. She was three months pregnant.
Mujahid, the police investigator, quoted Parveen’s father as saying: “I killed my daughter as she had insulted all of our family by marrying a man without our consent, and I have no regret over it.”
The Human Rights Commission have reported that 869 women were murdered in “honour killings” last year.
Image via AP.
