Girl set ablaze over love marriage in Lahore

LAHORE: A girl who married a man of her choice was allegedly set on fire on Wednesday in Lahore’s factory area.

The prime suspects in the case is the girl's mother Parveen who police has taken in custody.

Zeenat had married a man named Hasan few days ago, police said.

Hasan, her husband, in a statement to police said that Zeenat feared for her life because her mother opposed their marriage. "I had sent her to visit her family after her paternal uncle guaranteed her safety," Hassan said.

Police took into custody Zeenat’s dead body and sent it for post-mortem.

Love marriages are considered to bring dishonour to families in extremely conservative parts of the country.

This is the third case where victims- all girls-- have been burnt to death.

A 19-year-old girl who was set ablaze for refusing a marriage proposal succumbed to her wounds on June 1 at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Science. Maria, a school teacher in Murree was brought to PIMS with 85 percent burn injuries. Her family claimed that five people doused her in petrol and set her on fire after she refused to become the second wife of a man.

In May, the gutted body of a girl was found from a vehicle in Abbottabad. Police investigation into the case revealed that the 9th-grader was kidnapped from her house, sedated, murdered and then set on fire following a decision of a local Jirga.