PESHAWAR – Relatives of a teenager who eloped and married without parental consent shot her dead Monday in a raid on her new home which also killed her husband and in-laws, police said.

Dressed in police uniforms, dozens of relatives attacked the bridegroom’s house in the district of Charsadda, in North West Frontier Province.

“The assailants took the bridegroom out while some of the attackers climbed the wall and entered the house. They killed the bride, the mother and sister of the bridegroom,” said Charsadda district police official Saleem Jan.

“They beat them first and then shot them dead,” he told AFP. The groom’s father was also killed, another police official told AFP from Sardheri village in Charsadda. The bride was aged 18 to 19 and the groom 29 to 30, he added.

P“Both the girl and man married some weeks ago,” the bridegroom’s uncle Misal Khan told reporters at the scene. “The attackers were headed by the (paternal) uncle, cousin and maternal uncle of the girl. One of the attackers left his police uniform at the site. They also left one mobile phone in a pocket of the uniform,” he added.

Police said the main suspects were two uncles and a cousin. “We have registered a case against three relatives of the girl and their unknown accomplices,” police official Saleem Jan told AFP on telephone.

Online adds: Some unidentified armed men disguised in police uniform stormed into the house of Amir Nawaz in Ajara area and opened indiscriminate firing at family members, killing five on the spot.

Police said some 40 persons wearing police uniform surrounded the house of Amir Nawaz while some of them entered the house by scaling wall. They took out Kamran, elder son of Amir Nawaz, and murdered him.

Then they killed his mother Noshada, wife Uzma, and sister Neelum inside the house. Amir Nawaz was also severely wounded and taken to District Hospital Charsadda where he succumbed to his injuries. Two people of the slain family, Sulman Nawaz and Luqman Nawaz remained safe in the incident.

The incident was the result of a marriage dispute, local people said.

Sulman told police that he along with his family members was asleep in the house when Sharif Khan, Talawat, Gul Khan and others stormed into his house and opened indiscriminate firing at his family members, leaving his father, mother, sister, brother and sister-in-law dead.

He said he and his brother Luqman remained safe in the incident. He informed that his slain brother Kamran had married to Uzma against the approval of her family.

Police have registered the case and started investigation.
Source: The Nation
Date:6/30/2009