On Tuesday, Farzana Iqbal, a 25-year-old pregnant woman was beaten to death in broad daylight on a busy road in Lahore as police and passer by looked one.
The reason for the attack? She had chosen to marry a 45-year-old man named Muhammad Iqbal. That was a union deemed unacceptable by her family.
Police say the husband killed his first wife before marrying Farzana. After police sources in Lahore leaked unseemly details about his past to local media, Muhammad Iqbal himself confirmed to Agence France-Presse over the phone that he had strangled his first wife.
“I was in love with Farzana and killed my first wife because of this love,” he said before hanging up. The forgiveness of his son and Pakistan’s controversial blood-money laws apparently allowed him to escape a jail sentence.
Yesterday, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif issued an angry statement on her “brutal killing,” deeming it “totally unacceptable.” He ordered the office of the chief minister of Punjab, of which Lahore is the capital, to deliver a report on the case. The chief minister of Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif incidentally, happens to be the prime minister’s younger brother.
