Teenager burnt to death in Pakistan for rejecting marriage proposal

A 19 year old Pakistani woman Maria Sadaqat was attacked in her home near the hilltop town of Murree just outside Islamabad. She was beaten and set ablaze for refusing a marriage proposal from a man twice her age.Maria a school teacher was attacked by five men in her home on Sunday. She tried to call for help but non came due to the remote location of her house. By the time help came, she had been abandoned by assailants to die.
She was taken to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad where she later died on Wednesday due to severe injuries sustained from burns.
Before she died, she told the police that relatives of the school principal and a co-worker at school attacked her for refusing the proposal from his son. 

Maria's father has said the school owner was one of the men who attacked his daughter.

Her family say she had turned down a marriage proposal from the son of the owner of a school she had taught at.

The police has launched an investigation into the incident with three of the men taken into custody after the incident, while others are currently being sought
Human rights campaigners say attacks on women who refuse marriage proposals are common in Pakistan.

 

Maria's maternal aunt, said trouble started when the school's owner asked for her niece to marry his son.

She said: "She was teaching at their school. They sent in the proposal six months ago but the guy was already married and had a daughter. They wanted her to run the school after marrying the son of the owner of the school.

"Her father refused the proposal and they took the revenge by doing this."

"They have taken away my universe, why was she brutally murdered? How can they not feel any compassion?" Maria's mother told me, while waiting for her daughter's body.