Pakistani woman burns daughter alive for eloping

[webfact]

Pakistani woman burns daughter alive for eloping
ZAHEER BABAR, Associated Press
ASIF SHAHZAD, Associated Press

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — A woman in Pakistan burned her 17-year-old daughter alive on Wednesday to punish her for marrying against the family's wishes, the latest in a series of so-called "honor killings" that claim the lives of nearly 1,000 women every year in the conservative Muslim country.

Police say Zeenat Rafiq's mother, Parveen, tied her to a cot and drenched her with kerosene before lighting her on fire. Neighbors in the congested, working-class neighborhood in the eastern city of Lahore came running when they heard the screams, but family members kept them from entering the house, said Nighat Bibi, who lives nearby.

The police eventually arrived and found the charred body near a staircase. They arrested the mother soon thereafter.

The victim's husband, Hassan Khan, told reporters the two had been "in love since our school days" but the family had rejected several marriage proposals, forcing them to elope last month. He showed an affidavit of consent signed by his wife before a magistrate. He also showed cellphone photos of a smiling Zeenat wearing a red dress.

Sheikh Hammad, a local police official, said Parveen confessed to killing her daughter with the help of her son Ahmar. He quoted the woman as saying "I don't have any regrets." Another police officer, Ibadat Nisar, said the body showed signs of beating and strangulation.

Hundreds of women are killed every year in Pakistan -- often by their own family members -- for violating the country's conservative norms regarding love and marriage. Sex outside of marriage is seen by conservative Pakistanis as a stain on the honor of the woman's entire family, one that can only be removed by killing her.

Last week a schoolteacher, Maria Bibi, was set on fire for refusing to marry a man twice her age. The prime suspect in the case — the father of the man she refused to marry — and the other four are in custody.

A month earlier, police arrested 13 members of a local tribal council who allegedly strangled a girl and set her on fire for helping a friend elope. The charred body of 17-year-old Ambreen Riasat was found in a burned van.

Khan, the husband of the woman killed in Lahore, said her mother and uncle had visited her three days ago to try to persuade her to return home and have a marriage ceremony with the family, so that she wouldn't be branded as someone who had eloped. He recalled his wife telling him: "Don't let me go, they will kill me."

___

Shahzad reported from Islamabad.


-- (c) Associated Press 2016-06-09

[shirtless]

This just goes to show there is still a great divide between east and west ,

[Fookhaht]

Apparently, law enforcement has an uphill battle in this 15th century Islamic culture.

[Usernames]

Coming soon to a "refugee" center near you.

[BwindiBoy]

Bad culture.

[NumbNut]

And who's the Rhodes Scholar who came up with the term 'Honour Killing' to describe this. Can't see any honour here... exactly the opposite.

[Grouse]

This just goes to show there is still a great divide between east and west ,

A great divide between Muslims and the civilised world you mean

[Rancid]

Therein lies another problem with religion, some group of old men write a treatise on how we should live and its swallowed by the ignorant masses.

Any glimmer of objective thought tells us burning your child for marrying against your will is the act of a sociopath, however religion makes it acceptable.

Christianity went thru all this barbarism, these days it's Islam.

[Credo]

Therein lies another problem with religion, some group of old men write a treatise on how we should live and its swallowed by the ignorant masses.

Any glimmer of objective thought tells us burning your child for marrying against your will is the act of a sociopath, however religion makes it acceptable.

Christianity went thru all this barbarism, these days it's Islam.

Christianity didn't get stuck in barbarism for 1300 years.

[Dexlowe]

"I don't have any regrets."

You want shame -- that's shame. You are not part of the human race, lady.

[Pimay1]

Barbarian Neanderthals one step out of the cave. This didn't happen in a backward mountain village. It happened in the modern, so to speak, city of Lahore.

[Scouse Twoccer]

This just goes to show there is still a great divide between east and west ,

The OP doesn't show anything of the sort, this is nothing to do with geographical location. There are scores of countries that lie further east than Pakistan that demonstrate what most people would consider to be normal acceptance of an individual's decisions and choices.

[i claudius]

Therein lies another problem with religion, some group of old men write a treatise on how we should live and its swallowed by the ignorant masses.

Any glimmer of objective thought tells us burning your child for marrying against your will is the act of a sociopath, however religion makes it acceptable.

Christianity went thru all this barbarism, these days it's Islam.

Yes but that was hundreds of years ago ,this is the 21st century.

[TommyUK1960]

Very sad we still allow these barbaric cultures to exist. Britain will be the same way soon. We already have a Pakistani in charge of Londonstanie

[Naam]

Therein lies another problem with religion, some group of old men write a treatise on how we should live and its swallowed by the ignorant masses.

Any glimmer of objective thought tells us burning your child for marrying against your will is the act of a sociopath, however religion makes it acceptable.

Christianity went thru all this barbarism, these days it's Islam.

Yes but that was hundreds of years ago ,this is the 21st century.

Muslims still have to go 564 years to reach the Islamic 21st century.

[Naam]

Very sad we still allow these barbaric cultures to exist. Britain will be the same way soon. We already have a Pakistani in charge of Londonstanie

why don't you stop allowing these barbaric cultures?

[jak2002003]

So sad that there are people and cultures like this still around today... with all our new understanding, technology and science, there are still so many backward twisted idiots about. I often here that the Muslim women are treated very badly by their husbands or men in general, but it also seems that the women are just as savage and crazy to each other and their own children!

[Naam]

Therein lies another problem with religion, some group of old men write a treatise on how we should live and its swallowed by the ignorant masses.

Any glimmer of objective thought tells us burning your child for marrying against your will is the act of a sociopath, however religion makes it acceptable.

Christianity went thru all this barbarism, these days it's Islam.

Christianity didn't get stuck in barbarism for 1300 years.

history is not exactly your strength

• Scotland: The witchcraft trials in Scotland took place during the period 1561-1727.
• Kingdom of Great Britain: Witchcraft ceased to be an act punishable by law with the Witchcraft Act of 1735.

an estimated 50-60,000 witches were burned in Europe between 1200 and 1700.

[Credo]

Therein lies another problem with religion, some group of old men write a treatise on how we should live and its swallowed by the ignorant masses.

Any glimmer of objective thought tells us burning your child for marrying against your will is the act of a sociopath, however religion makes it acceptable.

Christianity went thru all this barbarism, these days it's Islam.

Christianity didn't get stuck in barbarism for 1300 years.

history is not exactly your strength

• Scotland: The witchcraft trials in Scotland took place during the period 1561-1727.
• Kingdom of Great Britain: Witchcraft ceased to be an act punishable by law with the Witchcraft Act of 1735.

an estimated 50-60,000 witches were burned in Europe between 1200 and 1700.

Sorry, but the Witchcraft Act was by the government, not by the Church.

[brewsterbudgen]

Very sad we still allow these barbaric cultures to exist. Britain will be the same way soon. We already have a Pakistani in charge of Londonstanie

What a stupid comment.

[Naam]

Therein lies another problem with religion, some group of old men write a treatise on how we should live and its swallowed by the ignorant masses.

Any glimmer of objective thought tells us burning your child for marrying against your will is the act of a sociopath, however religion makes it acceptable.

Christianity went thru all this barbarism, these days it's Islam.

Christianity didn't get stuck in barbarism for 1300 years.

history is not exactly your strength

• Scotland: The witchcraft trials in Scotland took place during the period 1561-1727.
• Kingdom of Great Britain: Witchcraft ceased to be an act punishable by law with the Witchcraft Act of 1735.

an estimated 50-60,000 witches were burned in Europe between 1200 and 1700.

Sorry, but the Witchcraft Act was by the government, not by the Church.

right you are! i completely forgot that the witch hunting governments of Great Britain and most countries of continental Europe had nothing to do with Christianity but were strongly influenced by other pagan faiths such as Hinduism.

next intelligent remark please

[ballpoint]

Christianity didn't get stuck in barbarism for 1300 years.

history is not exactly your strength

• Scotland: The witchcraft trials in Scotland took place during the period 1561-1727.
• Kingdom of Great Britain: Witchcraft ceased to be an act punishable by law with the Witchcraft Act of 1735.

an estimated 50-60,000 witches were burned in Europe between 1200 and 1700.

Sorry, but the Witchcraft Act was by the government, not by the Church.

right you are! i completely forgot that the witch hunting governments of Great Britain and most countries of continental Europe had nothing to do with Christianity but were strongly influenced by other pagan faiths such as Hinduism.

next intelligent remark please

Please get your facts right. It was all those Pakistani mayors they had back then that did it.

[BuaBS]

Therein lies another problem with religion, some group of old men write a treatise on how we should live and its swallowed by the ignorant masses.

Any glimmer of objective thought tells us burning your child for marrying against your will is the act of a sociopath, however religion makes it acceptable.

Christianity went thru all this barbarism, these days it's Islam.

Yes but that was hundreds of years ago ,this is the 21st century.

Well this wouldn't happen here .... because we are in the 26th century in Thailand, oh wait ....

[NickJ]

Mad Animals that happen to look human....

[evadgib]

Charges of 'Witchcraft' were used to explain things that have since been explained by science (LSD in damp wheat causing demons to appear etc). It served also as a means of purging villages of the odd scold during the English civil(?) war.

I'm not aware of a single case of using your own child as a Guy Fawkes in the modern Christian world simply for legging it with her childhood sweetheart.

[oldgent]

I guess these barbaric people dont know about Sin Sod

[Naam]

Please get your facts right. It was all those Pakistani mayors they had back then that did it.

more than any Pakistani mayor the Moghul Henry bin Henry al-Brittani (also known as Henry VIII) made it very clear that any interference of the "Church" in government business was unacceptable.

[Credo]

Therein lies another problem with religion, some group of old men write a treatise on how we should live and its swallowed by the ignorant masses.

Any glimmer of objective thought tells us burning your child for marrying against your will is the act of a sociopath, however religion makes it acceptable.

Christianity went thru all this barbarism, these days it's Islam.

Christianity didn't get stuck in barbarism for 1300 years.

history is not exactly your strength

• Scotland: The witchcraft trials in Scotland took place during the period 1561-1727.
• Kingdom of Great Britain: Witchcraft ceased to be an act punishable by law with the Witchcraft Act of 1735.

an estimated 50-60,000 witches were burned in Europe between 1200 and 1700.

Sorry, but the Witchcraft Act was by the government, not by the Church.

right you are! i completely forgot that the witch hunting governments of Great Britain and most countries of continental Europe had nothing to do with Christianity but were strongly influenced by other pagan faiths such as Hinduism.

next intelligent remark please

Nice try. There is virtually no country that isn't influenced by religion, but they aren't governed by it and they do not ignore laws because it is in the Christian beliefs. Some countries even don't kill killers, even though Biblical teachings say it's OK. They don't enslave people, even though the Bible says it's OK. Many even allow for birth control, use of condoms and abortions, even though some very influential churches condemn it.

Personally, I find it appalling that you would even consider arguing about a country that allows this type of behavior to exist because it is permitted by religion.

Time does seem to stand still in some countries.

[ballpoint]

Please get your facts right. It was all those Pakistani mayors they had back then that did it.

more than any Pakistani mayor the Moghul Henry bin Henry al-Brittani (also known as Henry VIII) made it very clear that any interference of the "Church" in government business was unacceptable.

Now there was a man who really knew how to treat a woman.

[djlest]

Yeah another Muslim story.... what a proud religion to follow!