40 days old son pays price for mother's 'crime'

Police on Thursday exhumed bodies of a girl and her 40 days old son in the Baqir Shah area in Alipur, a tehsil in the Muzaffargarh District in Punjab.

According to the police investigators, Aiman left her home to marry the man of her choice about one and a half years ago. Her brothers started a hunt for her and finally traced her whereabouts in Kot Addu, a tehsil in the same district. They kidnapped her along with her 40 days old child and murdered both of them. Aiman’s husband, Mukhtar, got a case registered with Kot Addu Police and the police launched an investigation into the double murder.

In the course of investigation, the police found that Aiman’s brothers Awais, Ahmad, Qayyum and Farooq murdered her and her child and then buried their bodies secretly. Police arrested the accused and they reportedly confessed to the double murder and also gave the police information about the place where they had buried the bodies of the mother and her 40 days old child. Police exhumed the bodies and sent them to a hospital for post-mortem examination.

What makes Aiman’s case unique is the fact that the perpetrators did not spare even her 40 days old child.

Hundreds of women and girls fall prey to “honour” killings in Pakistan every year. For many, women and girls are seen to embody family honour. A woman’s identity and her family’s sense of social respect and worth is measured by her acquiescence to family’s demands such as marrying the man they choose for her.