Pakistan girl strangulated, burnt for helping friend elope

Islamabad: Pakistani police on Thursday said they have arrested 14 suspects who strangulated a local girl and set her body on fire for helping one of her friends elope.

Khurram Rasheed, police chief of Abbottabad in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, said that the burnt body of 16-year-old Ambreen Riasat was found in a burnt down van in the tourist resort of Donga Gali on April 29.

Local residents suspected that the girl helped her classmate elope with a boy whom she loved. Same night, she was kidnapped from her house, police said.

"She was apparently kidnapped, raped and burnt alive after tying her to the back seat (of the van) with a wire," Abdullah, a neighbour, told Geo News.

Rasheed said that the 14 suspects included local councillor Muhammad Pervez, who presided over the Jirga, and the victim's mother. The councillor had confessed to the crime, he added.

"The councillor called the victim outside her house on the night of April 28. He gave her something to eat which left her unconscious. She was tied, put in a vehicle and set on fire," he said.