Pakistan village elders ordered murder of teenage girl in “honor killing”

PanARMENIAN.Net - Police in Pakistan say village elders ordered the murder of a teenage girl because she had helped a school friend to elope, BBC News reports.

The 16-year-old was kidnapped from her home near Abbottabad, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and put inside a vehicle that was set alight, police said. Graphic images of her body have been circulated on social media.

Police say the victim's mother and the leader of the local council, or jirga, are among several people arrested.

The killing has been linked to orders given last week by the jirga, a traditional assembly of elders, in Makol village, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reported.

According to police, the 15-member jirga had ordered the girl, named as Amber, to be killed and set alight as punishment for helping her friend to marry of her own free will.

The girl was kidnapped, drugged and killed and then placed in the back seat of a parked van that was doused with petrol and set on fire, Dawn reported. Other media reports said the victim was still alive when the van was set alight.

So-called honour killings are a major issue in Pakistan and many go unreported, BBC News said.

Last year, nearly 1,100 women were killed by relatives who believed they had dishonoured their families, a report by the country's independent Human Rights Commission said.

In February, Punjab, the country's largest province, passed a landmark law criminalising all forms of violence against women.