NEW DELHI -- In eastern Pakistan, a 19-year-old girl was beaten and threatened at gunpoint because she wanted to marry the man she loved. When she stepped out of her home, her uncle caught her, shot her, put her in a bag and dumped her in a river.
This horrific event was an attempted "honor killing," an old custom that persists in some Muslim and other communities in parts of South Asia and the Middle East. The men who commit the murders are often hailed as heroes for redeeming the honor of the families "disgraced" by marriages or relationships that had not received parental consent.
