Husband of Stoned Pregnant Pakistani Woman Admits to Murdering First Wife
The husband of a pregnant woman recently stoned to death in Pakistan recently admitted to murdering his first wife.
Mohammad Iqbal, husband to 25-year-old Farzana Parveen, admitted in a recent interview that he had murdered his first wife six years ago in order to marry Parveen. Parveen was recently stoned to death by members of her family when she refused to comply with an arranged marriage, going against her family's orders and instead marrying Iqbal. She was three months pregnant when she was stoned on Tuesday.
"I wanted to send a proposal to Farzana, so I killed my wife," Iqbal told CNN in an interview Thursday. Iqbal's son, who is now in his twenties, was reportedly the first to alert authorities when his mother was murdered six years ago. His father reportedly served one year in jail before being released because his son forgave him, an aspect of Pakistani law.
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"I was in love with Farzana and killed my first wife because of this love," Iqbal added to the Agence France-Presse. Local police confirmed to The Guardian that Iqbal had in fact strangled his wife to death six years ago, but he was able to avoid extensive jail time by reaching a "compromise" with the victim's family.
Just this past Tuesday, Iqbal's new wife, Parveen, was stoned to death by 20 of her male relatives for her marriage, which went against the family's wishes. Parveen, three-months pregnant, had been en route to the high court in Lahore to make a declaration that she had married on her own will, as her family had accused Iqbar of abducting her since they did not agree with the union.
As Parveen headed from her lawyer's office to the court house in the early morning hours of Tuesday, she was reportedly beaten to death with bricks by her relatives, and a noose of rough cloth was tied around her neck.
Local police has reportedly arrested Parveen's father, who led the deadly attack on his daughter. Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned Tuesday's attack as "totally unacceptable" and has ordered the chief minister of the Punjab province to begin an investigation into the murder and submit a report by the end of this week.
Although police claim that they arrived at the scene after Parveen had been attacked, Iqbar argues that the police stood by and did nothing while his wife was beaten to death and he was restrained by her relatives.
A journalist and editor at the Urdu national newspaper in Pakistan, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Guardian that Tuesday's tragedy is indicative of the Pakistani culture. "Although we have some educated people, most are still living in semi-tribal societies in far-flung rural areas," he said. "In a country where people are being killed every day by miscreants and militants it is not so important when one woman is killed by one husband."
