Islamabad: Gunmen shot dead a mother and
daughter in broad daylight in an upmarket neighbourhood of the
Pakistani capital today after the mother filed for divorce
from her husband, police said.
Najma Bibi, 40, was returning by car from the Islamabad
courts where she was seeking a divorce, when she was shot dead
along with her 18-year-old daughter Sidra and a man Nazeer,
28, whose relationship to the two women was unclear.
"It is a matter of personal enmity. The woman was
fighting a divorce case against her husband and we assume that
he managed to kill them," said police investigator Jamshed
Khan.
"We are yet to obtain further information about the
gunmen. A witness told us they were speaking Punjabi but we
don't have more details," he said.
While Pakistan suffers appalling statistics on crimes
against women, such attacks in broad daylight in the wealthy
capital are rare.
In the conservative Muslim countryside, women are often
seen as the subjects of their menfolk, to be defiled by their
rivals, or killed to maintain their honour.
Almost 1,500 women were murdered in Pakistan last year,
according to the Aurat Foundation, a local organisation
working to protect women.
Another 500 were the victims of "honour killings", in
which relatives and other fellow tribesmen kill a woman if
they believe she had an affair.
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, September 27, 2011, 22:06