Police book five suspects for setting Pakistani girl on fire

Lahore: The Pakistan police on Friday claimed to have arrested all five suspects involved in torturing and setting a teenaged girl on fire in Punjab province for refusing to marry a divorcee twice her age and booked them for murder. Maria Sadaqat, 19, was attacked on Monday in Upper Dewal village of Murree hill resort. She was admitted to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences with 85 per cent burn injuries. Before her death, Maria recorded her statement to the police and told them that she was pressed for marriage by the owner of a local private school where she used to teach. “We have arrested all five people including prime suspect Master Shaukat named in the FIR,” senior police officer Rawalpindi Wasal Fakhar Sultan told reporters. [caption id=“attachment_2796232” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of Pakistan police. AP[/caption] He said the suspects have been booked for murder and some other sections of the Pakistan Penal Code. “Anti-terrorism sections will only be included on the direction of the court,” he said. In her statement, Maria has said the five persons had entered her house when she was with her little sister and beat her. They doused her in petrol and set her on fire. Maria has alleged the five men burnt her alive because she had refused the marriage proposal of Master Shaukat’s son. Violence against women is common in Pakistan where every year hundreds of women are killed for honour. Last month the gutted body of a young girl was found from a vehicle in Abbottabad. Police investigation into the case showed a class 9 girl was kidnapped from her house, sedated, murdered and set on fire after a decision of a local Jirga. In April, a disabled 22-year-old girl from Swat was allegedly raped by a male nurse at PIMS. Nearly 1,100 women were killed in Pakistan last year in so-called honour-killings, the country’s independent Human Rights Commission says. Campaigners say most “honour killings” are not reported in Pakistan.