LAHORE: Police investigating the murder of a woman bludgeoned to death outside a court have arrested five more men in connection with the brutal killing, a senior official said Monday.
Farzana Parveen was killed last Tuesday outside the Lahore High Court by more than two dozen attackers armed with bricks, including numerous relatives, for marrying against her family’s wishes.
“We have arrested five more people in this case,” Umer Riaz Cheema, a senior police official investigating the murder, told AFP.
“With this the total number of the arrested people comes to 10 including Parveen’s father. However, the newly detained five men aren’t among the directly accused killers,” he said.
Parveen’s husband Iqbal claims more than two dozen people were responsible for her killing. Parveen’s two brothers, two cousins and a female relative are still at large.
Her father, Azeem, was detained at the scene of the attack, and a court on Saturday remanded him in custody for a further seven days.
Police were apparently at the scene, but did not stop the mob killing Parveen, who was three months pregnant.
Meanwhile, around four dozen human rights activists held protests in Lahore on Monday against Parveen’s murder and urged the authorities to punish her killers in order to avoid future attacks against women.
