Islamabad: A forensic report released on Friday of a slain schoolteacher, who was allegedly burnt alive in Murree last month, said that she was not set on fire but had committed suicide after her prospective husband refused to marry her.
The Rawalpindi police have submitted the report to Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. The report concluded that the teacher committed suicide after her relationship with her boyfriend, Haroon, came to an end.
Her parents, however, termed the report “character assassination” of their daughter and demanded justice.
The incident took place in late April and was reported on June 1, when Maria Sadaqat, 19, was allegedly attacked by a group of people in the village of Upper Dewal, close to Murree, outside the capital, Islamabad.
Abdul Basit, Sadaqat’s uncle, said his niece had been attacked by the principal of a private school, where she had formerly worked as a teacher, and his accomplices after she refused to marry his son.
“He was divorced and twice her age, so she refused the proposal and left her job when they pursued her time and again ... eventually, they attacked her,” Basit said.
Police said Sadaqat gave a statement before her death, naming the principal and four others as her attackers.
A doctor at the hospital said Sadaqat had succumbed to serious burns.
The incident was the second time in just over a month that a Pakistani woman had been murdered over marriage-related issues.
A woman believed to between the ages of 16 and 18 was drugged, strangled and her body burnt on the orders of a village jirga (council) in northwest Pakistan on April 29, allegedly for helping a friend elope with her lover.
Hundreds of women are murdered by their relatives in Pakistan each year on the pretext of defending what is seen as family honour.
