British woman allegedly ‘honour’ killed in Pakistan

London: Police are investigating the death of a British woman in Pakistan after her husband claimed she was the victim of an “honour” killing for marrying a man from outside the family, allegedly against her parents’ wishes.

Samia Shahid, a beauty therapist from Bradford, died on Wednesday while visiting relatives in Pandori village near Mangla Dam in northern Punjab, the Foreign Office confirmed.

Her husband, Syed Mukhtar Kazam, claimed he was told that his wife suffered a fatal heart attack which led to her death, reports the Guardian.

British MP, Naz Shah, has demanded that authorities in Pakistan exhume her body and commission an independent autopsy.

Shah also asked Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to intervene in the matter. In a letter addressed to Prime Minister Sharif, Shah wrote: “Should this be (an honour killing) case then we must ensure justice is done for Samia and we must ensure this never happens again.”

The police officer leading the investigation in Pakistan said he had sent samples from the body to the country’s top forensics lab in Lahore on Tuesday.

The official said a postmortem was carried out immediately after Shahid died and there were no visible injuries or signs of violence on her body, he said.

However, Shahid’s husband said he feared she had been killed by her family, who he says refused to accept their relationship, partly as he was an “outsider”.

Shortly before Shahid and Kazam married at Leeds town hall in September 2014, she had left her first husband, a first cousin from their village in Pakistan.

The family strongly denies the ‘honour killing’ claims. (ANI)