A Lahore sessions court has approved the 14-day judicial remand of a man, accused of killing his step-sister for honour.
In a hearing on Wednesday, the investigation officer told the court that the suspect, identified as Muhammad Ali Nasir, confessed the crime during questioning.
“He spiked the woman’s food and then murdered her,” the officer said. “Nasir fled the crime scene with the woman’s car and mobile phone and then filed a complaint to mislead the police.”
The officer added that the footprints found from the 29-year-old woman’s house matched the suspect’s footprints. He was the only person who visited her that day, the investigations revealed.
The 29-year-old woman, a model, was found dead at her residence in Lahore’s DHA on July 11. She was strangled to death. An FIR under sections of murder was registered.
According to the statistics available by the Punjab Police, at least 6,277 cases of honour killings occurred in Punjab between 2011 and 2020. The maximum number of cases was 404 in 2014.
Around a thousand Pakistani women are murdered in honour killings each year — in which the victim, normally a woman, is killed by a relative for bringing shame on the family.
Perpetrators have often walked free because of a legal loophole that allowed them to seek forgiveness for the crime from another family member.
But the government has since passed a law that mandates life imprisonment, even if the attacker escapes capital punishment through a relative’s pardon.
“Antiquated and lethal notions that ‘honour’ resides in women’s bodies and actions still prevail across Pakistan,” the country’s Human Rights Commission said in a statement.
