Woman allegedly burned alive by mother in Pakistan

THE second so-called ‘crime of honour’ in two weeks has been reported in Pakistan, where a mother reportedly burned her daughter alive on Wednesday (June 8) for having got married without her family’s permission.

The deceased, 17-year-old Zeenat Bibi, was held still by relatives while her mother Perveen Bibi allegedly doused her in kerosene before setting her alight, police spokesman for the eastern city of Lahore Matloob Hussain told Efe news agency.

The young woman had run away to marry Hassan Khan, who said on an interview on GEO TV: “She didn’t want to go back to see her family as she feared they would kill her. But I agreed after one of her uncles guaranteed her safety. I let her go….”

Just over a week beforehand, a 19-year-old teacher was tortured and burned alive by a group of men after refusing a marriage proposal from the son of the owner of the school where she worked in the city of Murree, near the capital. The young woman died from her injuries on Wednesday June 1, two days after the attack, Murree police spokesman Mubashir Hussain Abbasi reported.

Crimes of honour are habitual in southern Asia and usually involve male family members who seek revenge for what they consider to be moral offences against their families’ honour. In 2015, 923 women were victims of this type of crime in Pakistan, a Human Rights Commission report revealed, although there are probably many more which go undetected.

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