The father of a pregnant 25-year-old who, along with members of his family, stoned her to death has been belatedly arrested by police in Lahore following media outrage.
Farzana Parveen, who was three months pregnant, was attacked on Tuesday (May 27), police said, because she had married the man she loved rather than succumb to the arranged marriage her family demanded. According to her husband, police did nothing during the 15 minutes of frenetic violence outside Lahore High Court.
“I begged them to help us but they said, this is not our duty,” said Muhammed Iqbal, adding “I took off my shirt (a sign of humility) and begged them to save her.”
Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif has demanded to know why police apparently stood by, his spokesman has told reporters. A statement from the prime minister’s office said Mr Sharif had taken notice of the ‘brutal killing’ in the presence of police. Quoting the PM, it added that a “totally unacceptable” crime had to be dealt with promptly by law. “I am directing the chief minister to take immediate action and a report must be submitted by this evening to my office.”
In an overwhelmingly Muslim nation, many Pakistani families think it dishonourable for a woman to fall in love and choose her own husband. This latest case is just one of dozens of such incidents every year in which girls are stoned and often murdered to ‘protect the honour’ of the family. Last year a teenage girl died while receiving 101 lashes after being raped by an uncle, who had fled the village. Her sentence was imposed by the local Imam.
A police officer on Tuesday quoted Farzana’s father as saying it had been an honour killing, since she had offended her family by marrying Iqbal instead of a cousin selected for her. Her two brothers and a ‘fiancé’ – presumably the cousin the family earmarked for her – were among the attackers.
The brutality of the murder has caused outrage around the world. Muhammad Aurangzeb, Farzana’s 20-year-old stepson (Iqbal’s son), described how one relative had tried to shoot her, and then grabbed her head scarf, causing her to fall over. While a member of Iqbal’s party wrestled the gun away, a female cousin grabbed a brick and hit Farzana with it, he said.
“She was screaming and crying ‘don’t kill me, we will give you money’” said Iqbal. He said he tried to save her but the mob of more than 20 beat him back. At one point, six people were beating her with bricks as she screamed. Finally she stopped screaming.
The attack happened near the gate of the heavily guarded court on one of the busiest roads in Lahore. The couple had been due to testify there that morning that their marriage was genuine in response to a false charge of kidnapping brought by Farzana’s family.
It was not the first time her family had tried to kill the woman, according to her lawyer, Rai Ghulan Mustafa. On May 12, seven of her relatives had tried to force their way into his office, where she was sitting, but his colleagues had fought them off. Later they attacked her near a police station. Officers intervened and held the attackers for an hour before releasing them without charge, he said.
All the suspects, except the father, who has been detained, have disappeared.
