Not honorable

On Fane Road, one of the busiest roads in Lahore, twenty-five-year-old Farzana Parveen, who had been on her way to court in the company of her husband Mohammad Iqbal and in-laws, was, according to media reports, attacked by over two dozen people who threw bricks at her and beat her with sticks in broad daylight, and in the presence of police officers standing guard outside of the court.

Refusing to go through with a pre-arranged marriage to a cousin, and instead marring someone else in January, Parveen's parents had filed a law suit against her husband. On May 27, she was to testify in his defense.

She was three months pregnant. Among the alleged killers were the woman's father Azeem, her brothers Zahid and Ghulam Ali and other family members. She died on the spot. Her husband and in-laws also suffered injuries.

The assailants escaped.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday, May 29, voiced dismay over the case and demanded the chief minister of the Punjab take immediate action. "This crime is totally unacceptable and must be dealt with in accordance with law promptly," Sharif was quoted by AFP news agency.

Honor killings

Such attacks, known as "honor killings," are common in pockets of rural Pakistan, where tribal traditions are strong.

The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported that 869 women were stabbed, shot, beaten or burned to death in honor killings in Pakistan in 2013, usually at the hands of close family.

Such killings in Pakistan are often described as a byproduct of Islamic law.

But a religious scholar and a provincial leader of Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl party, Riaz Durrani says, "Honour killings have nothing to do with religion.

"There is nothing in the Koran that permits or sanctions honor killings. This is a brutal, cruel act that needs to be condemned in strongest terms."

He adds that Islam gives free choice to all who wish to get married: "The mutual choice of would-be-spouses is given the highest consideration.

'Do not prevent them from marrying their husbands when they agree between themselves in a lawful manner,' reads a passage of the Koran. So no one is allowed to force women into not marrying the partner they wish to. Similarly, they cannot be forced to marry someone they do not wish to."

Not an issue of Islam

Durrani, instead, blames the act on attitudes that view women as property with no rights of their own as the motivation for honor killings. "Social and family constraints, and not Islamic injunctions, push children to rebel."

Human rights campaigners say such killings more frequently stem from tribal traditions or deep-rooted cultural norms.

In a statement, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says Farzana Parveen's only crime was to marry of her own free will, a right that the law recognizes for all adult citizens but one where the state has failed to prevent abuse and violence.

"Such brazen actions have been encouraged by the authorities' failure to fulfill their duty to protect citizens' lives," says the statement issued by HRCP Chairperson Zohra Yusuf.

The HRCP calls upon the government to unreservedly condemn this shameful crime and make sure that Parveen's killers do not escape justice by glorifying their dastardly act in the name of honor.

"The government should also consider starting a public awareness campaign to combat the feudal mentality behind the crime and ensure that the killers get no premium for invoking misplaced notions of honor," the HRCP says.