A
pregnant woman has been stoned
to death by her own family in front of a Pakistani high court - for
marrying the man she loved.Nearly 20 members of the woman's family,
including her father and brothers, attacked her and her husband with
batons and bricks in broad
daylight.
Farzana Parveen, who was three months pregnant, was killed before a crowd of onlookers in front of
the high court of Lahore.
According to
Daily Mail, Police official Naseem Butt said the 25-year-old had married Mohammad Iqbal, with whom she had been engaged for years
against the will of her family. Her father had filed an
abduction
case against her husband, which the couple was contesting, her lawyer
Mustafa Kharal said.Kharal said Parveen's relatives waited outside the
court, which is located on a main downtown thoroughfare.
As the couple walked up to the court's main gate, the family members fired shots
in the air and tried to snatch her from Iqbal
When she resisted, her father, brothers and other relatives started
beating her, eventually pelting her with bricks from a nearby
construction site, Iqbal said.
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 reporters.
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,' he said.
Butt, the police official, said Parveen's father surrendered after the
incident and called the murder an 'honor killing.In honour killings,
most of the time the women's killers are her family, said Wasim Wagha of
the Aurat Foundation.
The law allows them to nominate someone to do the murder, then forgive him.
Her husband and family with her corpse