Three suspects arrested for burning girl alive over marriage refusal
Maria Sadaqat, 19, was tortured and set alight in for refusing a marriage proposal - (AFP Photo)
MURREE (Web Desk / AFP) – Rawalpindi police have arrested three suspects for their alleged involvement in 19-year-old girl’s murder over a matrimonial dispute in Murree, Dunya News reported on Friday.
RPO Rawalpindi Wasal Fakhar Sultan said the suspects including Master Shaukat, Mian Arshad and Riffat Mehmood were named in the First Information Report (F.I.R) filed by the victim’s relatives.
Maria Sadaqat, 19, was tortured and set alight in for refusing a marriage proposal from the son of a former colleague. She was attacked by a group of people in the village of Upper Dewal close to the summer hill resort of Murree, outside the capital Islamabad.
She was badly tortured and then burned alive. She was moved her to hospital in Islamabad but succumbed to her wounds.
Girl‘s uncle Abdul Basit said his niece had been attacked by the principal of the private school where she had formerly worked as a teacher, and by his accomplices after she refused a marriage proposal from his son.
"He was divorced and twice her age, so she refused the proposal and left her job when they pursued her time and again... eventually they attacked her," Basit said.
Police said Sadaqat gave a statement before her death naming the principal and four others as her attackers.
A doctor at the hospital said Sadaqat had succumbed to serious burns.
"The poor woman was becoming better but then could not survive because most parts of her body had serious burn injuries," said Ayesha Ihsani.
It was the second time in just over a month that a Pakistani woman had been murdered over a marriage issue.
A woman believed to be aged between 16-18 was drugged, strangled and her body burnt on the orders of a village jirga (council) in northwest Pakistan on April 29, allegedly for helping a friend to elope with her lover.
Hundreds of women are murdered by their relatives in Pakistan each year on the pretext of defending what is seen as family honour.
