MULTAN, Pakistan, 21 June 2005 — A Pakistani poured kerosene over his sleeping wife and daughter and burned them to death in the country’s latest example of so-called honor killings, police said yesterday.
The 45-year-old man, named as Jalil Ahmed, snapped after his brother caught his daughter having sex with a neighbor in the remote town of Samasatta, about 105 km south of the central city of Multan, police said.
He rushed back from his workplace in the southern city of Karachi and with the help of his brother tied the 20-year-old girl Shomaila, and her mother to wooden beds as they slept, police officer Arif Nawaz said.
They then set light to the two women — the girl for having an affair and the 40-year-old mother Azeem Mai for “not discouraging her daughter”, the police officer said.
Police have arrested the girl’s father and uncle and efforts were under way to arrest their neighbor, who fled the town after the incident.
“We have registered a case against three persons and arrested two of them, who have confessed the crime,” the policeman said.
“They said they had killed them for honor.”
Officials say about 4,000 people, mostly women, have died as a result of brutal “honor punishments” in rural areas of Pakistan over the past four years.
Last week a Pakistani widow and her two daughters were beaten and forced to parade naked through a market after her son allegedly had an affair with another man’s wife in Qabula, 175 km east of Multan.
Mukhtaran Mai, 33, became the victim of a notorious gang rape in June 2002, in Meerwala village, which is in the same area. She was raped on the orders of a tribal council to atone for her brother’s alleged affair with a woman of a powerful rival clan.
President Pervez Musharraf early this year signed into law a bill introducing the death penalty for honor killings.
Pakistan yesterday denied it had caved into pressure from the United States over the treatment of Mukhtaran, whose pursuit of justice won world acclaim.
Mukhtaran was barred from leaving the country earlier this month while her alleged attackers were freed from jail, prompting international outrage.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz last week lifted the ban after the State Department took a swipe at the key US ally over the “outrageous” case and urged Pakistan to respect human rights.
“There is absolutely no pressure as far as this particular case is concerned,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani told a weekly briefing when asked if Pakistan had bowed to Washington.
He said he could not comment further on the case and urged the media, rights groups and “entities both local and foreign” to do likewise since Pakistan’s Supreme Court was due to hold a hearing on it later this month.
After her rape, allegedly as punishment for her brother’s affair with a woman from a powerful rival clan in the remote town of Meerwala, 33-year-old Mukhtaran defied threats and local customs to testify against the suspects.
In August 2002 six men were sentenced to death. But this March, another court overturned five of the convictions and reduced the death sentence of the sixth to life in prison.
Twelve men were then rearrested on the prime minister’s orders but were freed on June 10.
Pakistan admitted it had banned Mukhtaran from leaving the country after she was invited by Amnesty International to meet US congressional leaders and administration officials to discuss abuses against women in South Asia.
It lifted the ban last Wednesday.
“There are absolutely no curbs on her movement. She is free to travel anywhere, any time of her choosing. She is a victim, the sympathies of the government are always with the victim,” Jilani said.
