A pregnant woman, Farzana Parveen, has been stoned to death by more than 20 members of her own family in front of the high court of Lahore. She was only 25 and three-months pregnant.
The group included her father and brothers. They attacked her and her husband with batons and bricks. The attack happened in broad daylight.
Hundreds of women are killed every year in honor killings but public stoning is rare.
Police investigator Rana Mujahid said the woman’s father has been arrested for murder and that police were working to apprehend all those who participated in the “heinous crime.”
Another police officer, Naseem Butt, said she was killed because she married Mohammad Iqbal against her family’s wishes.
Her father, Mohammad Azeem, had filed an abduction case against Iqbal.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a private organisation, said in a report last month that some 869 women were murdered in honour killings in 2013.
Zia Awan, a prominent lawyer and human rights activist, said: “I have not heard of any such case in which a woman was stoned to death, and the most shameful and worrying thing is that this woman was killed in front of a court.”
He said Pakistanis who commit violence against women are often acquitted or handed light sentences because of poor police work and faulty prosecutions.
“Either the family does not pursue such cases or police don’t properly investigate. As a result, the courts either award light sentences to the attackers, or they are acquitted,”
Her husband survived the attack. Iqbal, 45, said he started seeing Parveen after the death of his first wife, with whom he had five children.
“We were in love,” he told The Associated Press. He alleged that the woman’s family wanted to fleece money from him before marrying her off. “I simply took her to court and registered a marriage,”
Parveen’s father called the murder an “honor killing” and surrendered after.
“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,” Mujahid, the police investigator, quoted the father as saying.