Iran man kills teenage daughter for honour

• Teenager meets young man in southern city of Nurabad, Iran.
• Enraged father confronts girl after which she flees to grandmother's house.
• In Iran, a father does not incur the death penalty if he kills his child.

TEHRAN: A teenage girl in Iran was killed by her father who blasted her with a shotgun in the heart, local media said on Friday.

The death, an apparent so-called "honour killing" in the country, came after the father confronted his 16-year-old daughter after she met a young man in the southern city of Nurabad, women's activists said.

The girl fled to her grandmother's house after an argument with her father, who then confronted her.

"I didn't really intend to kill my daughter, I shot unintentionally," the father said, quoted by the Rokna news website. "I went there with my shotgun only to scare her."

The father, 43, was arrested and "confessed to his crime", Rokna added.

In Iran, a father does not incur the death penalty if he kills his child.

There are no exact statistics on honour killings in Iran, but the ISNA news agency estimates there are "between 375 and 450 cases of honour killings" a year.

According to ISNA, such killings account for around a fifth of murders committed in the Islamic republic.