Pak teen burnt alive for helping friend elope

A young Pakistani woman was set ablaze on the orders of a village jirga (council) for helping her friend elope with a lover, the police said Thursday.

The woman was drugged, strangled before her body was set ablaze. The police said 14 people had been arrested in connection with the murder that took place on April 29 and was reported days later.

A police official said the 20-year-old victim was locked in a van on the orders of the village jirga in Makol area and set ablaze.

The victim’s mother was also arrested, he said, because she supported the jirga’s decision.

The 14 appeared in a local anti-terrorism court Thursday on murder and terrorism charges.

Hundreds of women are murdered by their relatives in Pakistan each year on the pretext of defending family “honour”, but it is rare to hear of those who facilitate elopements being killed.

Pakistan amended its criminal code in 2005 to prevent men who kill female relatives escaping punishment by pardoning themselves as an “heir” of the victim.

Meanwhile, a senior police officer was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in Lahore.

Deputy Superintendent of police (DSP) Imran Babar, who has been suspended since February 2015 over various cases of fraud, was collared by the police after family members of a girl filed complaint against him. Parents alleged that the DSP raped their 14-year-old daughter at his house.

SP Investigation, Amara Athar said the victim family filed the complaint through the police helpline, 1515, before handing the accused over to the police. “We can only decide after hearing the two sides,” she added. The girl was shifted to hospital for medical check-up.

Officials says the rape accused is a man of controversial character, and have already been facing several fraud cases as well as departmental disciplinary action since he was suspended from the service in February 2015.