LAHORE: The husband of a pregnant Pakistani woman who was beaten to death outside Lahore’s High Court for marrying against her family’s wishes vowed yesterday to fight for justice.
Farzana Parveen, 25, was attacked outside Lahore’s grand high court building by more than two dozen brick-wielding attackers including her brother and father, who has been arrested, police said.
Three-months pregnant Parveen, whom police earlier identified as ‘Farzana Iqbal’, had gone to testify in defence of her husband Muhammad Iqbal -- who was accused by her relatives of kidnapping her and forcing her into the marriage.
Iqbal said: “We demand justice. We were being threatened since we got married.”
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay also strongly condemned the killing, urging the Pakistani government to take “urgent and strong measures” to put an end to so-called honour killings in the country.
Iqbal, 45, said he and his wife had survived a previous attack during the first hearing of the case on May 12.
“On Tuesday as we were going to court from our lawyer’s office almost 30 people attacked us, including her father, brothers and cousins,” he said.
The group of 10 or so people accompanying him were overwhelmed by the suddenness of the attack and fled in all directions, he said.
“One of her brothers shot at her but missed, then the women in their group fell upon her and her brother and father finished her off,” said Iqbal.
“The most painful thing is that nobody came forward to save my wife, the police were there and hundreds of lawyers were there along with ordinary men, but they all just watched like spectators.”
Police officer Mushtaq Muhammad said Parveen’s father Muhammad Azeem had been detained while five others -- two brothers and three cousins -- remained at large.
Another police officer, Rana Akhtar said that police were launching raids in the Nankana Sahib district of Punjab province to arrest the accused.
Growing apathy
“I am deeply shocked by the death of Farzana Parveen, who, as in the case of so many other women in Pakistan, was brutally murdered by members of her own family simply because she married a man of her own choice,” the UN body’s Pillay said.
“I do not even wish to use the phrase ‘honour killing’: there is not the faintest vestige of honour in killing a woman in this way.”
Despite the gruesome and public nature of the killing in Pakistan’s most liberal city, media reaction has been relatively muted -- indicating what activists said was a growing apathy within society amid rising extremism.
Last year 869 women died in so-called “honour killings” according to the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
AFP
